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Book. 



Goi^iiglit]^?- 



C0F3fRICHT DEPOSm 



JOHN HARVARD 

AND HIS TIMES 




HAKVAHU HOUSE, STilATTOKU-ON-AVON. — Frontispiece. 

See page 80. 



JOHN HARVARD 

AND HIS TIMES 



BY 

HENRY C. SHELLEY 

AUTHOR OF "UTEHARV BY-PATHS OF OLD ENGLAND," ETC. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1907 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

OCT 3 1907 

Copyriffht Entry 

Cci 3 /fd7 

CLASS A xXc, No, 

COPY A. 



ff 



,i 



47 



3'3 
/^7 



Copyright, 1907, 
By Little, Bkowv, and Company. 



All rights reserved 



Published October, 1907 



THE TNIVERSITT PRESS, CAMBRTBOT:, U.S.A.. 



^^-I^I'^S'^ 



TO 
CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT 

WHOSE PRESIDENCY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 

ADDS AN ILLUSTRIOUS CHAPTER 

TO ITS ANNALS 



PREFACE 

il MONG the names graven on the foun- 
/-\ dation stones of American history none 
is so deeply carved or is so rich in prom- 
ise of endurance as that of John Harvard. 
In fact, no name has been for so many gen- 
erations so literally a household word. It 
was familiar long before the name of George 
Washington become a commonplace of Ameri- 
can speech ; and, no matter what new sons of 
fame may be born in the future, there is little 
fear that eclipse will overtake the renown of 
John Harvard. 

Yet, for all that, the founder of America's 
first seat of learning is one of the most shad- 
owy figures in the history of the Republic. 

Up to some twenty years ago, John Harvard 
was, in Lowell's phrase, "scarce more than a 
name." Earlier still another writer made the 
felicitous reflection that " John Harvard seems 
to be the ' Melchisedec ' of the first age of the 

vii 



PREFACE 

Colony of Massachusetts. He is known to us 
only as * a priest of the Most High God,' and 
as one who 'gave gifts.' So far as any certified 
facts concerning his lineage or circumstances 
have been presented to us, he is ' without father, 
without mother, without descent, having neither 
beginning of days,' nor a known resting-place 
for his mortal dust." 

Of course this paucity of knowledge could 
not be charged to a lack of zeal among those 
industrious genealogists for whom New Eng- 
land has long been famous. So far back as 
1842, James Savage offered the seductive 
reward of five hundred dollars for five lines 
of information about John Harvard in any 
capacity, public or private. But no one could 
claim it. Unfortunately the reward does not 
still hold good. Otherwise there might be 
numerous applicants. 

To whom, however, the prize would fall need 
not be discussed here. It would make neces- 
sary an attempt to decide to whom belongs 
the honour of being the first discoverer of 
John Harvard's baptismal entry in the archives 
of St. Saviour's Church, SouthM'^ark, London. 
Without entering upon the somewhat heated 

viii 



PREFACE 

and ungenealogical wranglings which marred 
the unearthing of the Harvard baptismal rec- 
ords, wills, etc., a tribute of gratitude for much 
assiduous research must be paid to William 
Rendle and Henry F. Waters. Their labours 
have made this book possible. 

Perhaps, however, it may be necessary to 
add that for the theories advanced in these 
pages the present writer is alone responsible. 
No doubt most interest will be concentrated on 
the attempt to prove that the parents of John 
Harvard were introduced to each other by 
William Shakespeare. To the author, the ar- 
guments adduced constitute a strong case of 
circumstantial evidence. Perhaps the mere 
statement of those arguments may lead to 
further investigation and convincing proof. 

One other remark seems needful. This is a 
pioneer effort to reveal the character of John 
Harvard. It may seem incredible, yet is 
nevertheless strictly true, that the present vol- 
ume is the first to be written on the young 
minister whose generosity had such an impor- 
tant influence on the beginnings of education 
in America. The pioneer is liable to take the 
wrong trail now and then, and some allowances 

ix 



PREFACE 

will no doubt be made on that score. Yet the 
hope is entertained that the following chapters 
visualise the life and character of John Harvard 
to an extent hitherto believed impossible. 

H. C. S. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

An expression of sincere gratitude for generous assist- 
ance in the preparation of this volume is hereby ten- 
dered to William Chawner, Master of Emmanuel College, 
Cambridge, England ; the Hon. Joseph H. Choate ; 
John La Farge ; the Bishop of Southwark ; Sidney 
Colvin ; the Rev. W. Marrable, South Mailing, Sussex, 
England ; William C. Lane, Harvard Uni versity ; and 
Horace G. Wadlin and the Assistants of the Boston 
Public Library. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter Pack 

I. Environment 1 

II. Parentage 47 

III. Early Influences 83 

IV. The Harvard Circle 117 

V. Cambridge 135 

VI. Last Years in England 197 

VII. The New World 235 

VIII. The Praise of John Harvard . . . 281 

Index 323 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Harvard House, Stratford-on-Avon . . . ' . . Frontispiece 

Old Houses, Southwark Page 42 

Plan of Southwark, after a Drawing of the 

Sixteenth Century " 49 

The Globe Theatre, Bankside "68 

Record of John Harvard's Baptism, from the 
Register of Saint Saviour's Church, South- 
wark "81 

Saint Saviour's Church, Southwark "126 

Emmanuel College, Cambridge "149 

Chapel of Emmanuel College " 154 

John Harvard's Signature in the Admission Fee 

Book, Emmanuel College "157 

Book inscribed with John Harvard's name, in 

the possession of Emmanuel College ... "173 

Dr. John Preston, Master of Emmanuel College " 178 

Dr. Anthony Tuckney "180 

John Wallis, a Fellow-Student of John Harvard " 18F 

Dr. Ralph Cud worth " If ' 

Archbishop Sancroft " IH 

South Mailing Church, where John Harvard 

was married " 199 

xiii 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Interior of South Mailing Church Page 207 

Record of John Harvard's Marriage .... "213 
Memorial Window in the Chapel of Emmanuel 

College, Cambridge "240 

Memorial Tablet in the Chapel of Emmanuel 

College, Cambridge " 260 

Harvard Memorial Window, Saint Saviour's 

Church, Southwark "272 

The Harvard Monument at Charlestown ... " 283 
Title- Page of " The Christian Warfare," pre- 
served in the Library of Harvard University " 299 
Statue of John Harvard, on the Delta, Harvard 

University " 312 



XIV 



I 

ENVIRONMENT 



John Harvard and His Times 

CHAPTER I 

ENVIRONMENT 

QUEEN ELIZABETH had been dead 
nearly five years when John Harvard 
was born. During even that brief 
period, the change which had been creeping 
over England in the closing years of her 
long reign had gathered considerable force. 
Broadly put, it was a change from the gaiety 
of the Renascence to the austerity of the 
Reformation. 

Potent though the Renascence had been in 
moulding the social and intellectual life of 
Elizabethan England, there were not lacking 
signs that the Reformation, retarded for a 
time by the Catholic revival under Mary, was 
widening its influence. Nowhere is that fact 
more discernible than in the literature of the 
period. The final appeal was not always to 

3 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

the re- discovered classics; mingling with names 
and references which speak of Greece or Rome, 
we light upon others which show that the 
scholars of those days were placing the Bible 
beside Homer and Virgil. Sidney's "Defence 
of Poesie" makes sure of its final triumph by 
citing the Holy Scripture for argument, for that 
book, he noted, is seen to have " whole parts of 
it poetical, and that even our Saviour Christ 
vouchsafed to use the flowers of it." 

Part, no doubt, of the instantaneous pop- 
ularity of Spenser was due to the skill with 
which his verse reflected the mood of an age 
hovering 

" between two worlds, one dead. 
The other powerless to be born." 

Of course his poetry, in its mere mechanism, 

owed much to the remembered pageantry of 

the age of chivalry, yet even that remembrance 

was seen through the new light of a reformed 

Christianity. Much more is it true that in the 

contents of his poetry the leaven of Puritanism 

was already at work. Four out of the twelve 

pastorals of his first poem, "The Shepherd's 

4 



ENVIRONMENT 

Calender," concerned themselves, symbolically, 
it is true, with those questions of church gov- 
ernment which were being so zealously de- 
bated in all circles, and in that age of conceits 
the symbolical garb with which he clothed his 
arguments and denunciations helped to inter- 
pret rather than disguise his meaning. Even 
if the reader of the verse had been in danger of 
missing its moral, the "glosse" or commentary 
which accompanied each poem enforced its 
teaching with unmistakable plainness. The 
holy water used by the priest is "foolerie" 
and "blindnesse"; such pastors as care more 
for their own pleasure than the well-being of 
their people are 

" shepeheardes for the Devils stedde. 
That playen while their flockes be unfedde " ; 

and the poet specially invents the fable of the 
Fox and the Kid to warn the Protestant "be- 
ware how he giveth credit to the unfaythfuU 
Catholique." 

When Spenser addressed himself to the task 
of his life, the writing of "The Faerie Queene," 

it was with a deepened consciousness of his 

5 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

mission as a preacher to his age. The fair 
Una of that dream-world is the symbol of 
Protestantism as represented by the person of 
Queen Elizabeth, and the revolting Duessa 
stands for the spirit of Catholicism as em- 
bodied in Mary Queen of Scots. With that 
key to its allegory kept in mind, little need be 
urged to enforce the truth that while in its 
form "The Faerie Queene" was a birth of the 
Renascence, in its spirit it yielded tribute to 
the peculiar genius of the Reformation, 

Not for many centuries had so momentous 
a change passed over the thoughts of men. 
Hardly had they been given time to look 
around them in the new world which the 
Renascence opened up to their astonished 
vision, when they were suddenly warned that 
man was something more than a mere vassal 
of pleasure; that life, instead of being an 
opportunity for enjoyment, was a stern school- 
house on the threshold of eternity. Una and 
her Red- Cross Knight, then, were no impal- 
pable children of an unsubstantial fairy-land; 
instead, they were types, as seriously real as 

6 



ENVIRONMENT 

Bunyan's distressed pilgrim, of the conflicts 
and dangers which beset each individual soul 
in its war with evil. Beneath the smiling 
verse of Spenser runs an undercurrent of more 
sombre hue. For all the enchanted castles of 
this dream-land, for all its rich woodland 
glades where crystal streams sustain a cease- 
less melody, for all its "careless quiet" and 
"eternal silence," for all its lordly trees spread- 
ing wide their grateful shade in summer noon, 
for all its alternating pictures of " rosy-fingered 
morn" and "coal-black curtain" of "dark- 
some night," the stubborn reality of the con- 
flict of the soul is never far distant for long. 
It obtrudes itself, indeed, when least ex- 
pected. Under the lovely outward semblance 
of the seeming fair Fidessea is hidden the 
foulness of Duessa, the type, with Spenser, of 
the corruptions of Rome. Of a truth, then, 
"The Faerie Queene" does indeed strike the 
"note of the coming Puritanism." 

But with a limitation. The strict meaning 
of Puritanism is too often overlooked, and it 
was only in its original sense that Spenser was 

7 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

its prophet. The cloak of Puritanism is fre- 
quently stretched to cover a multitude of sects 
such as it would have abhorred to gather under 
its shelter. The Puritan was really a member, 
and a devoted member, of the Church of 
England; all, in fact, that "the bulk of the 
Puritans asked was a change in the outer 
ritual of worship which should correspond to 
the advance towards a more pronounced Prot- 
estantism that had been made by the nation 
at large during the years of Elizabeth's reign." 
That this was Spenser's position is proved 
beyond question by a comment attached to 
one of the poems of *'The Shepherd's Calen- 
der," to the effect that nothing in the verse was 
meant to "deny fatherly rule and government 
(as some maliciously of late have done, to the 
great unrest and hindrance of the Church) 
but to display the pride and disorders of such 
as, instead of feeding their sheep, indeed feed 
off their sheep." 

In that reference to the "some" who had 
recently disturbed the peace of the Church of 
England we have a glimpse of the doings of 

8 



ENVIRONMENT 

the Brownists, or Separatists, of those days. 
Under the leadership of the Rev. Robert 
Browne, they had carried their dissent from 
the church so far as to emigrate in a body to 
Holland, and thus they became the type of all 
those disaffected spirits who for one reason 
or another abandoned all hope of a purified 
Church of England. With sectaries of this 
type the Puritans would have no communion; 
for many years they were kept faithful by that 
astute policy which preserved the unity of the 
Church of England by repression of Catholics 
and Separatists alike. It must not be for- 
gotten that the Puritans and the Separatists 
were both typically represented among the 
earliest settlers in New England. It was 
because it had gone further than the Puritans 
that the congregation from which the Pilgrim 
Fathers came was hounded from England, and 
hence the Plymouth settlement was representa- 
tive of the Separatist element in English reli- 
gious life; on the other hand, the bulk of those 
who sought a new home along the shores of 
Massachusetts Bay belonged to the Puritan 

9 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

camp, and their arrival in New England in 
ever- increasing numbers coincided with the 
repeated attacks made by Laud and others 
on the Puritan position. The fact that John 
Harvard elected Boston rather than Plymouth 
as his destination would seem to indicate that 
his sympathies were with the Puritan rather 
than the Separatist standpoint. 

Puritans and Catholics alike anticipated 
great things from the advent of James I. to the 
throne of England. The latter based their 
hopes on the new monarch being a son of 
Mary Queen of Scots; the former might have 
been excused for expecting sympathy from a 
sovereign who professed a Calvinistic theology 
and had grown up under the influence of 
John Knox and George Buchanan. Both par- 
ties forgot that James was a Stuart. 

Out of respect for what she had done for the 

nation, the Puritans refrained from troubling 

Elizabeth in her last years with demands for 

reform in the Church of England. No such 

scruples stood in their way with James. 

Long before he could reach London he was 

10 



ENVIRONMENT 

met by a deputation of ministers bearing the 
Millenary Petition, so called because it was 
thought to bear the signatures of a thousand 
ministers, and in that petition, while not asking 
any change in the government of the church, 
they pressed for the removal of superstitious 
usages from the Book of Common Prayer, for 
the disuse of the Apocrypha, for a stricter ob- 
servance of the Sabbath, and for the creation 
of a ministry capable of preaching to the 
people. In accepting the petition James prom- 
ised to summon a conference of bishops and 
divines for its discussion, but, when that con- 
ference met nearly a year later, only four Puri- 
tan ministers were invited to its proceedings, 
as compared with nine prelates known to be 
adverse to the petition. 

Even after the lapse of three centuries, it is 
impossible to read the proceedings of that con- 
ference unmoved. The conduct of James in 
that assembly alone was more than ample 
warrant for the witticism which described 
him as "the wisest fool in Christendom." 

Had he not been cursed with the fatal incapa- 

11 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

city of the Stuart race to read the signs of the 
times, that conference might have established 
his throne immovably in the affections of his 
people. The prelatical party counted for 
little; they would have followed whither they 
were led; but those four Puritan ministers, if 
James had only known it, stood for all that 
was best in the nation, stood for the strength 
and courage which had scattered the Armada, 
and for that even more heroic energy which 
was to establish so surely the foundations of 
the great nation of the West. But the Stuart 
blindness clouded the vision of the king, and 
while the obsequious bishops applauded his 
clumsy witticisms as the "inspirations of the 
Holy Ghost," the earnest appeals of those four 
Puritans were answered only with scorn and 
ridicule. And then, as he saw the dauntless 
four still stand unmoved and heard them 
question his infallibility, he abruptly dis- 
banded the conference with the threat, "I will 
make them conform or I will harry them out 
of the land!" 

During the thirty years which John Harvard 
12 



ENVIRONMENT 

spent in England six distinct Parliaments were 
summoned for the despatch of State business, 
three in the reign of James I. and three in that 
of Charles I. To one of those Parliaments 
the courtiers applied the adjective of "Addled," 
but in truth that adjective might have described 
the whole six. James and Charles alike had 
an overweening conception of the royal of- 
fice; the former was never weary of defend- 
ing his thesis that kings had a divine right and 
absolute authority over all men, and the latter 
bade the representatives of the people "re- 
member that all Parliaments are altogether in 
my power." Given two monarchs holding 
such theories, it would have been easy and 
safe to prophesy serious conflicts between 
Crown and Commons. The history of the 
Parliaments of James and Charles is little less 
than a history of such conflicts. And, in the 
last resort, in nearly every case the question of 
religion, which in those days meant Puritanism, 
was the rock of offence. Summoned for the 
purpose of voting supplies, Parliament after 
Parliament refused to unlock the national 

13 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

treasury save on the condition of debating the 
matter of religious reform. 

In the first Parliament of James the mem- 
bers listened unmoved while he dilated upon 
the two "gifts" he brought them, one of 
peace with other nations and the other of a 
union with Scotland. As soon as they were 
able to get to work, their legislative programme 
was seen to be practically a copy of the Mil- 
lenary Petition. In an address to the king 
they indulged in some wholesome plain speak- 
ing of a kind which was often to fall on Stuart 
ears in succeeding times; they warned the 
monarch that he would be living in a fool's 
paradise if he heeded the assertions of those 
who declared that the kings of England had 
any power over questions of religion save as 
that power was derived from the consent of 
Parliament. James was in no mood to listen 
to such language, then and always seditious in 
his opinion; and the bishops who sided with 
the Court party, taking heart from the king's 
attitude, secured a vote in Convocation which 
lifted the rites and ceremonies of the church 

14. 



ENVIRONMENT 

into greater importance than they had had 
for more than thirty years. Rather than sub- 
scribe to the position represented by that vote, 
three hundred Puritan ministers elected the 
alternative of being ejected from their livings 
early in 1605. When, some six years later, 
James dissolved his first Parliament it was 
still the question of Puritanism which pre- 
vented king and Commons from reaching an 
agreement. James had not the least sympa- 
thy with any movement which would tamper 
with the episcopal character of the Church of 
England. His early experience in Scotland 
had made him hate the name of Presbyteri- 
anism, and his short-sighted vision could see 
no other goal for any efforts at reformation. 
"No bishop, no king!" was the limit of his 
creed; and in England as little as in Scotland 
could he realise that there were "two kings 
and two kingdoms" in his dominion, and that 
the better part of his subjects gave the first 
place in their loyalty to "Christ Jesus the 
King and his kingdom the Church." 

Brief as was the career of the "addled 
15 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Parliament," it, like its predecessor, stoutly 
refused to consider the question of supplies 
until it had discussed more urgent matters, 
chief among those being the corruptions of the 
Church. For seven years thereafter James 
governed without a Parliament, and when his 
monetary necessities forced him to summon 
the Commons in 1621 it was not long ere the 
Journal of that chamber was engrossed with 
the Great Protestation. That notable docu- 
ment, a kind of late appendix to the Great 
Charter, claimed that affairs of King, State, 
and Church were equally legitimate subjects of 
debate in Parliament, and that in the discussion 
of such matters every member of the House 
was entitled to full liberty of speech. Al- 
though James tore the offending page from 
the Journal of the House, he could not so 
easily destroy the spirit which had prompted 
the lines it bore, and when, a few years later, 
death called upon him to lay down the power 
he had wielded so unwisely, there was no ver- 
dict save that of failure to be written against 
the record of his reign. "He had struggled 

16 



ENVIRONMENT 

with the Parliament, and the Parliament was 
stronger than ever. He had broken with 
Puritanism, and England was growing more 
Puritan every day." 

More tragic still was to be the failure of 
Charles I. None of his father's defeats con- 
veyed any warning to him. To him, indeed, 
was it o;iven to start that train of events which 
led to the final and utter downfall of the Stuart 
race. When he flouted the wishes of his sub- 
jects by wedding a daughter of Catholic France 
he ensured a double nemesis in the loss of his 
own crown and life, and the ruin of his son 
who had imbibed only too thoroughly the reli- 
gious temper of his mother. 

That there had been no change in the 

temper of the nation was shown by the first 

act of the new Parliament. One of the court 

chaplains, Montague by name, in a recent 

sermon had exalted the Church of Rome at 

the expense of the Reformed Churches, and 

even went so far as to contend for the Real 

Presence in the Sacrament. Montague was 

called to the bar of the House of Commons and 
2 17 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

committed to prison, from whence, however, 
he was soon released by the special command 
of the king. Here was proof enough that the 
old struggle with James was to be renewed 
with his son. If further proof were needed, it 
was furnished in full measure by the Parlia- 
ment of 1629, which, as with so many that had 
gone before, declined to vote the king any 
supplies until the state of the church had been 
dealt with. Of course the usual dead-lock 
followed; matters of religion, Charles answered, 
"only appertaineth to the clergy and Convoca- 
tion," and he knew he could count upon their 
docile support. The only course, as usual, 
was to dissolve the Houses, but ere the mem- 
bers were dispersed again to the four quarters 
of the kingdom the sturdy John Eliot had 
uttered his memorable prophecy — " None 
have gone about to break Parliaments, but 
in the end Parliaments have broken them." 
Twenty years later Charles was to make good 
those words at the headsman's block. 

With the dissolution of 1629, Charles re- 
solved to repeat his father's experiment of 

18 



ENVIRONMENT 

governing without a Parliament, and thus it 
happened that no other House of Commons 
assembled during the remaining eight years 
which John Harvard was to spend in England. 
He had already been more than a year in his 
student quarters at Cambridge when Eliot's 
prophecy resounded throughout England, and 
when we remember the temper of the Cam- 
bridge undergraduates of those times we may 
be certain that the doings and debates in 
Parliament were keenly followed and discussed 
in that quiet University town. During the 
subsequent eight years, of which John Har- 
vard was to spend six at Emmanuel College, 
the activities of Laud were to furnish the 
Puritans with much cause for anxiety. 

If satire should ever inspire the actions of 
those who erect public statues, Laud might 
certainly count upon having a statue on 
American soil. He was the most efficient 
recruiting- sergeant New England ever had. 
On the eve of the Long Parliament, and when 
Laud' was committed to prison, the Puritan 
emigration suddenly ceased. In the words of 

19 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Winthrop, "the change made all men stay in 
England m expectation of a new world." 
The change, however, came too late to influ- 
ence John Harvard: he had been gone three 
years, and in his grave two. 

Although more than two and a half centuries 
have passed away since Laud was beheaded, 
it seems almost impossible for historians to 
write about his career without heat. In fact, 
he is nearly as potent a cause of partisan- 
ship as Mary Queen of Scots. Wordsworth 
thought he was 

"Prejudged by foes determined not to spare" ; 

Macaulay held that "contemptuous mercy 
was the only vengeance which it became the 
Parliament to take on such a ridiculous old 
bigot"; Coleridge absolved him of being a 
Papist but had no doubt he was on the high- 
road to Rome; and Carlyle regarded him as 
not dishonest, but "an unfortunate Pedant, 
rather than anything worse." One virtue at 
least may be granted to that famous church- 
man; he never wavered from the path he 

£0 



ENVIRONMENT 

elected to follow early in life. As a student 
his good, or evil, star — the reader will please 
make choice according to his standpoint — 
guided him to St. John's College at Oxford, 
which was notoriously opposed to the Puri- 
tanism of most of the other colleges in that 
University, and had for its principal tutor one 
who was deeply learned in the early fathers of 
the Church. It may be that Laud owed his 
High Church tendencies to that tutor, but in 
any case those tendencies were already settled 
when, in 1602, he was appointed divinity 
lecturer to his own college. From the plat- 
form which that position gave him he at once 
began to inculcate the principles which influ- 
enced all his future actions and finally led him 
to the scaffold. To his thinking, the Church 
of England was linked in an unbroken succes- 
sion with the earliest ages of the Christian 
faith; baptism into that Church was, conse- 
quently, essential to salvation; and as bishops 
were the medium through which apostolic 
succession flowed, there could be no true 
Church without bishops. 

21 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Later reflection caused him to amplify this 
programme in many details; as when, quite 
early in his career, he quickly repented having 
oflSciated at the marriage of a divorced lady 
and resolved to celebrate the anniversary of 
that offence as a day of humiliation ; but in the 
broad outlines of his policy he was consistent 
from first to last. When he was elevated to 
the bishopric of St. David's, he refused to 
accept consecration at the hands of Arch- 
bishop Abbot because that prelate had a short 
time before accidentally killed a keeper while 
hunting; but he gladly accepted the services of 
a commission of bishops selected by Charles. 
In that way, he doubtless thought, he had 
avoided the danger of a flaw in his own apos- 
tolical succession. Instead of betaking him- 
self to his distant see, as, by his own theory, 
he ought to have done in order to ensure the 
validity of baptisms in his diocese, Laud 
remained in London fully four and a half 
years out of the five during which he was 
bishop of St. David's. His reward came 
when he was translated to the see of London 

22 



ENVIRONMENT 

in 1627, and thenceforward he waged war 
against Puritanism without mercy. 

Woeful tales were told by the Church 
party as to the neglect into which divine ser- 
vice had fallen in those years. While one 
parish rejoiced in "solemn ritual, beautiful 
music, and earnest preaching," in the next 
parish everything was literally going to the 
dogs, for had not such a quadruped actually 
stolen a loaf from the communion table 
while the people were wickedly absorbed in 
listening to the eloquence of some Puritan 
minister ? 

Laud revealed much astuteness in the 
methods he employed for the overthrow of 
Puritanism. At the outset he devoted his 
attention to the bench of bishops, and no 
doubt always had ready for reference that list 
of divines he had prepared for the king, and in 
which he had distinguished each name with 
an O or a P, the former standing for " Ortho- 
dox" and the latter for "Puritan." Having 
ensured that each see as it fell vacant should 
be suitably filled, he turned his attention to 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

another matter. Many of the Puritans who 
had been compelled to resign their livings 
found havens as chaplains in the homes of 
sympathetic country gentlemen, so word went 
forth to the effect that in future no one under 
the rank of a nobleman should be allowed to 
have a resident chaplain. Still, however, in 
the towns there remained the lecturers to be 
dealt with, lecturers who were supported by 
the operations of a fund specially created to 
purchase tithe impropriations which had fallen 
into the hands of laymen. Of course it was an 
easy matter for Laud to secure a verdict that 
a trust of this kind was illegal and that the 
tithe impropriations must revert to the king. 
Needless to say, he seems to have overlooked 
such a small matter as providing payment for 
the robbery. 

Having shown so much activity in his diocese 
of London, it was only to be expected that his 
elevation to the archbishopric of Canterbury 
would be marked by a still more aggressive 
policy. The principal channel through which 
that activity was manifested was the famous 



ENVIRONMENT 

three years' visitation of the province of 
Canterbury which he instructed his vicar- 
general to carry out. Never were archiepis- 
copal orders more ruthlessly obeyed. The 
ostensible object of the visitation was to 
"reform abuses and enforce the law" — as 
Laud understood law and abuses. Inquisi- 
torial reporting of sermons was resorted to in 
every parish for the detection of heretical 
opinions; the communion table was removed 
from the centre of the church to within the 
chancel ; communicants were no longer allowed 
to receive the elements while seated but were 
obliged to kneel; bowing at the name of Jesus 
was rigidly inculcated as an essential act of 
divine worship ; and such matters as the decora- 
tion of the church with the sign of the cross, 
and the proper vestments to be worn by 
ministers, received minute attention. At a 
time, in short, when the bulk of the people of 
England felt they needed no external cere- 
monials to aid them in the worship of God, 
Laud insisted upon carrying out to the smallest 
detail his own opinion to the contrary. Even 

25 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

his advocates are forced to admit that he " was 
asking too much of his countrymen. To 
persuade them to decorous worship would be 
the work of time and gentleness. He strove 
to hurry it on ; and he would fail, for the pres- 
ent moment." Had Laud given heed to 
some of his own monitions — for he was an 
intensely superstitious man — Tower Hill 
might not have numbered him among its 
victims. In one of his letters, written when 
the storm-clouds of his own raising were 
gathering darkly around him, he recalled a 
warning which he had noted some years 
before. "When I first came to Lambeth," 
he said, "there were in the walks song- 
thrushes which even began to sing in February, 
and so continued, and the nightingales fol- 
lowed in their season. Both of these came my 
first year, I think to take their leave; for 
neither of them hath appeared ever since: and 
I presently said I should have a troublesome 
time in that see, and so it proves." There are 
many pathetic pages in the life- history of this 
self-willed churchman, but hardly one so 

26 



ENVIRONMENT 

pathetic as this record of the sweet songsters 
who came to "take their leave." 

Even James I. had wit enough to discern the 
weakness of Laud. When the Duke of Buck- 
ingham asked that he might be appointed to 
the see of St. David's, the king, in giving his 
consent, ejaculated, " He hath a restless spirit, 
which cannot see when things are well, but 
loves to toss and change, and to bring matters 
to a pitch of reformation floating in his own 
brain. Take him with you, but by my soul 
you will repent it." Notwithstanding the 
fact that Laud's visitation resulted in many 
ministers — Cotton and Hooker among the 
rest — seeking a haven in New England, 
those Puritans who remained had not even yet 
been driven into an irreconcilable position. 
They were as deeply attached to their mother 
Church as Laud himself, and would fain 
continue to count themselves among her 
children if it were possible. Rarely has the 
Puritan position been more reasonably or 
pithily put than it was about this time by the 
Rev, Thomas Warmstry in these words: 

27 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

"I disrelish neither the doctrine, nor the 
discipline, nor the government of the Church. 
Not the doctrine, I embrace it heartily; and I 
conceive the Church of England may be herein 
the pattern of the world: and that if ever any 
Church had taken that living water clearly and 
purely from the fountain, it is the Church of 
England. Not the discipline, I entertain it 
willingly, so far as it is established by law: I 
wish indeed there might be no private innova- 
tions. I love outward reverence in God's 
worship, so that it be directed to the right 
object; not to altars; not to images; but to 
God. I love all ceremonies that truly tend 
thereunto, or to decency, or to uniformity, 
which I acknowledge to be most necessary in 
religious actions. But I desire that in affecta- 
tion of reverence, we breed no contempt; that 
in contrivances of decency, we bring in no 
blemishes : that the Church may not seem to be 
infected with the humours of some women in 
this age, that never think themselves hand- 
somely dressed, but when they are in some 
new and fantastical fashion: that while we 

28 



ENVIRONMENT 

endeavour uniformity, we do not multiply 
division. We may be so busy in drawing the 
two ends together, that we may break the staff 
in the midst. That we be not so careful to 
preserve uniformity with others that are with- 
out, that we make dissensions within our own 
Church. The truth is, I wish there might be 
nothing scandalous, nothing frivolous in the 
Church. Nothing scandalous, not so much as 
a title. Though I love the sacrifice of alms, 
and praise, and I hope should not refuse my- 
self to be a sacrifice unto God, though a burnt 
one; yet I know no need of any material altar; 
because I know no material sacrifice, but that 
eternal sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. And 
though it may be urged, that the Primitive 
Church used the name of altar for the holy 
table, yet that makes it neither necessary nor 
warrantable for us to do the like; unless to- 
gether with the language we could call back 
the purity, the simplicity of the Primitive 
times. . . . Besides, the language of the 
Scripture and the Apostles is the most pure 
and the most ancient language of the Primi- 

29 



JOHN HARVARD AKD HIS TIMES 

live Church; and we read of no altar there 
after Christ, but the altar of the cross, or 
Christ crucified. I desire there may be noth- 
ing scandalous: I wish the pure image of God 
in righteousness and true holiness may be 
restored in the spiritual temples of our souls. 
But I desire, at least, an abatement in the num- 
ber, and limitation, for the manner and situa- 
tion of images in the material churches, be- 
cause I doubt they are scandalous to all sorts. 
. . . And as I desire there may be nothing 
scandalous in the Church, so there may be 
nothing frivolous, or irrational, that our ser- 
vice may be a reasonable service. I know 
not why we should have candles in the day- 
time. I wish there may not be so much as an 
emblem of a fruitless Prelacy, or Clergy in the 
Church, that only fill the candlestick, but give 
no light. I love ornaments in the Church, so 
that they be not toyish or theatrical. I hold it 
very fit that God, as he is the author of our 
riches, so he should be served with them. 
Yea, an holy congregation is the best furniture 
of the Church. I wish our special care may be 

30 



ENVIRONMENT 

for this, and then let the outward adornation, 
as fair, as grave, as decent, not be neglected." 
What could be more temperate than this ? 
Save for that gentle hint at the possibility of a 
prelate filling a candlestick but giving no light, 
surely even Laud, if he had been so conciliatory 
as we are often asked to believe he was, might 
have discovered a foundation for satisfactory 
compromise in such a spirit as this. That he 
would have been generously met by the 
Puritan leaders there can be no doubt, but the 
archbishop was either too proud, or too stub- 
born, or too conscientious — as some would say 
— to resile one inch from his position. It is 
idle, in the face of such an earnest exposition 
as that given above, to say that the Laudian 
party stood for a more sincere or effectual 
piety than the Puritans. In those excited 
times, extremists on either side made ludicrous 
charges as to the immorality bred of their 
rival creeds; neither Puritans nor Laudians 
possessed a monopoly of godliness. But it 
may be claimed for the Puritan that he was, 
at any rate at the outset, more reasonable than 

31 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

his opponent. In making that claim, however, 
it may be needful to except the rank and file of 
the party from full participation in its com- 
mendation. 

Materials for constructing a picture of the 
daily life of a Puritan tradesman in London, 
such as we know John Harvard's father 
to have been, are none too plentiful, but 
it fortunately happens that within the last 
generation our knowledge of that phase of 
seventeenth century life has been considerably 
increased. A part of that result has been due 
to the unearthing and editing of borough and 
parish church records in which so many anti- 
quarian societies have displayed so much com- 
mendable industry; but perhaps the most 
interesting contribution to our knowledge has 
been made by the publication of extracts from 
the diary and miscellaneous note- books of a 
London Puritan tradesman, Nehemiah Wal- 
lington by name. These records are specially 
useful in an attempt to depict the environ- 
ment of John Harvard, for while the social 
status of Nehemiah Wallington was closely 

S2, 



ENVIRONMENT 

akin to that of John Harvard, it also happens 
that each was hving his daily life not only 
within about a quarter of a mile of the 
other, but also at nearly the same date. There 
was a difference of only nine years between 
the ages of the two men, Wallington having 
been born in 1598 and Harvard in 1607. 
Each had a tradesman for his father, Mr. 
Wallington senior being a turner and Mr. 
Harvard senior a butcher. And their several 
homes were separated only by the river Thames, 
the birthplace of Wallington being about the 
same distance from the north side of the 
river as Harvard's was from its south side. 
That the social status of the two fathers was 
much the same is suggested by the fact that 
each occupied a similar position, that of 
churchwarden, in their respective parish 
churches. 

Wallington's mother has often been cited as 
the type of a Puritan parent in the early 
seventeenth century, and her portrait, as 
sketched by the pen of her husband, may be 
presented here for the help it may afford in 
3 33 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TII^IES 

giving a picture of the mother of John Harvard. 
"She was very loving and obedient to her 
parents, loving and kind to her husband, very 
tender hearted to her children, much affect- 
ing the sincere preachers of God's Word, lov- 
ing all that were godly, much misliking the 
wicked and profane. She was a pattern of 
sobriety unto many; very seldom was seen 
abroad, except at church; when others rec- 
reated themselves on holidays and other times, 
she would take her needlework and say, ' here 
is my recreation.' She was of fine inventions 
for drawing works, and other choice works, 
and many a fine and a neat piece of work hath 
she soon despatched, she would so apply to it; 
besides a very good judgment in setting out 
work in colours, either for birds or flowers. 
God had given her a pregnant wit and an ex- 
cellent memory. She was very rife and per- 
fect in all the stories of the Martyrs, and could 
readily turn to them; she was also perfect and 
well seen in the English Chronicles, and in the 
Descents of the Kings of England. She lived 
in holy wedlock with the Husband of her 

34 



ENVIRONMENT 

youth twenty years wanting but four days." 
Apologists for the Cavalier dames often de- 
clare that those ladies were more devoted to 
fancy needlework than their Puritan sisters, 
but there appears to be small foundation for 
such a generalisation. It may be, however, 
that the efforts of the Puritan lady often took 
the direction implied in this contemporary 
satire : 

" Nay, sir, she is a Puritan at her needle too : 
She works reHgious petticoats ; for flowers 
She '11 make Church histories ; besides, 
My smock-sleeves have such holy embroideries 
And are so learned, that I fear in time 
All my apparel will be quoted by 
Some pure instructor." 

Unfortunately, Nehemiah Wallington does 
not assist us much in reconstructing the life of 
a Puritan boy. There is, however, one char- 
acteristic touch in his diary, where he records 
that "when I dwelt in the house with my 
father, I did use every day to go up alone into 
the high garret to pray, whether for fashion's 
sake, or custom's sake, I know not." Those 
were days of precocious piety. The memoirs 

35 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

of that time introduce us to numerous infantile 
religious prigs, who are somewhat of an inflic- 
tion even in print. No doubt it was all the 
fault of their terribly serious elders. Then, 
as ever, the child acted 

" As if his whole vocation 
Were endless imitation." 

Wallington does not suggest that his daily 
climb to the "high garret" was prompted by 
any inward inclination to prayer for its own 
sake; his only diflBculty in deciding his motive 
lay, as we see, between the alternatives of 
fashion or custom. We may hope that his 
childhood, and that of John Harvard, was not 
wholly devoid of playtime, even though such 
games as were allowed may, in the eyes of 
their parents, have had a useful symbolical 
meaning. It is asserted that the game of 
"Tom Tidler's Ground" had its origin at the 
Reformation, and that the Puritans were re- 
sponsible for many childish recreations which 
were specially designed to cast a slur on the old 
religion. In this category is placed that 
shadow- game in which the forefinger and 

36 



ENVIRONMENT 

thumb were wrapped in a handkerchief and 
were made to bow to each other to the accom- 
paniment of the words, "Father, father, I've 
come to confess." Perhaps young Nehemiah 
WaUington and John Harvard may have been 
permitted to wile away the long winter even- 
ings in their homes with allegorical amuse- 
ments such as these. 

Unlike John Harvard, WaUington did not 
go to either of the great universities, but in his 
twenty- second year he took to himself a wife 
and settled down in business on his own 
account as a turner. The house he occupied 
was situated not far from where the present 
Monument of London stands to mark the spot 
on which the great fire of 1666 originated. As 
with the Harvards, his place of business was 
also his home. Judging from his own account, 
WaUington appears to have been exceedingly 
industrious, for he never began his day's labours 
later than five o'clock in the morning, and 
sometimes he was at his work at the unearthly 
hour of three or even two. However early he 
rose, his first business was to be "in private 

37 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

prayer to my God," no longer doubtful, we 
may hope, whether it were fashion or custom 
which inspired his devotions. Then he turned 
to his calling, and " God sent in such a blessing, 
that it made me wonder and stand amazed, for 
I took three, four, five, six, seven, nay once I 
took ten pounds one a day." Grateful piety 
was probably responsible for an overestimate 
of these daily proceeds, for there were times 
when he refrained from a profitable expendi- 
ture of four pounds because "money is so 
short with me"; and when it came to writing 
his will he apologised to his wife in anticipa- 
tion for the smallness of his estate, and took 
refuge in the Scriptural excuse, "Silver and 
gold have I none, but such as I have I give 
unto you" — the "such as I have" being 
rather unrealisable assets in the shape of 
numerous pious precepts! 

Perhaps Puritanism in this instance was not 
conducive to business astuteness. At any rate, 
he kept his accounts in such a manner that it 
was possible for one of his workmen to rob 
him of nearly one hundred pounds in two 

38 



ENVIRONMENT 

years. In consideration of the man confessing 
his theft — for which Nehemiah and his wife 
had been mutually accusing each other — 
the culprit Vv-as not handed over to the law, but 
Wallington no doubt "improved" the occasion 
by offering him some spiritual advice. He was 
liberal with that commodity. When another 
of his workmen left him, he gave him "a 
charge to be careful to keep the Lord's day 
holy." It was all in vain. He went "wrest- 
ling in the fields" on the Sabbath, and received 
such an injury that "within a short time he 
died of it." This incident furnished Walling- 
ton with another paragraph for the note- book 
in which he recorded "examples of God's 
judgments on those that break his holy 
Sabbath day." 

Professional house-breakers sometimes be- 
stowed their attentions upon Wallington's 
home. One visit of this kind was paid on a 
Sunday when all the family were at church. 
If the thieves had selected a house whose 
occupants were "in the fields" on that day, no 
doubt the incident would have been jotted 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

down in the note-book as another example of 
God's judgments, etc. The good Puritan 
never thought of complaining against a Provi- 
dence which could not take care of his goods 
while he performed his religious duties; but he 
did find consolation in the fact that he "lost 
no more." Three pounds were gone from one 
desk, and about twenty shillings were missing 
from a receptacle marked "This is the Poors' 
box," the existence of which throws some 
light upon the charities exercised in these 
Puritan households. Apart from such losses 
as these, Wallington passed through an anxious 
experience, not unknown in modern days, 
through standing as surety for a friend. The 
bailiffs actually took possession of his prem- 
ises, and for two weeks he neglected his shop 
and "could scarce eat any supper." This 
episode had, of course, to be interpreted for 
spiritual ends, but one of the resolves it sug- 
gested was the practical and wholly worldly 
conclusion "to take heed another time of 
suretiship." 

Debarred by their creed from participating 
40 



ENVIRONMENT 

in the pleasures of the theatre, of which the 
most notable in London, the Globe, was 
within an easy walk of both Wallington's and 
Harvard's home, and cut off for the same 
reason from the bear-baiting gardens and all 
the kindred amusements of the time, one often 
wonders what these Puritans did for recrea- 
tion. Wallington supplies us with some sort 
of an answer to that question. The Thames 
was within a stone's- throw from his door, as 
it was from the home of John Harvard, and 
an occasional row on its waters was not deemed 
too worldly an amusement. Even in such 
innocent recreation, however, Wallington was 
not free from those miraculous " deliverences " 
which he so frequently notes in his diary. 
Once when rowing down the river on a visit to 
his sister, "and partly for refreshment," the 
man "rowed his boat over the cable rope of a 
ship which, as we all do think, was two feet 
above the water. And it was the great mercy 
of God that the boat did not overwhelm us 
all; and being low water, he rowed his boat 
two or three times upon the gravel, so that his 

41 



JOHI^ HAHYAP^D AND HIS TII^IES 

boat stuck fast, and put us in great fear; but 
God of His goodness carried us safe thither at 
last, where we were all very merry together." 

Another mild amusement in which Wallino;- 
ton indulged rather freely was to watch the 
numerous political processions as they passed 
on their way to the Houses of Parliament. 
Those were stirring times, and whenever the 
Commons were summoned to Westminster 
countless deputations made their way thither 
to present petitions of grievances against the 
State or the Church. At that time London 
Bridge was the only causeway over the 
Thames, and consequently all the petitioners 
from Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, etc., 
would use that bridge as their gateway to 
London. John Harvard would have a more 
enviable position from which to watch these 
processions, inasmuch as his father's house 
was by the side of the road along which they 
would have to pass, and thus he could observe 
them in comfort from the overhanging win- 
dows of his own home. 

But we have not exhausted the catalogue of 
42 









S F*l Pt! ^ I * 4>iiHf 'm 



-,. i * ^' ^ -^3 yW.PT SlfcU* te^^ ^; 

. dl ^ - ' . rsn --.*. (4^ 







^ /■ 



.jj.i ii»iiiii n] i i«i i w i— M^ia — i Jtt M iMmiJ -^]iN- n i M» iiw!ii< i iw ^ i i *-'^-*«mi ajdl!ir_"**»'?M"!3riJ**^ 



OLD HOUSES., SOLTHVYARK. — P«(7f 42. 



ENVIRONMENT 

Puritan recreations. In the early years of the 
seventeenth century the printing-press entered 
in good earnest on its since ceaseless career of 
activity, and one of the events of the week in 
those days was the arrival of the pedler, or 
chapman, with his overflowing bundle of 
ballads, chapbooks, books of news, and con- 
troversial pamphlets. No one watched for his 
appearance with more lively anticipations 
than Wallington, and as his own particular 
chapman no doubt soon got to know the taste 
of this good customer, we may be sure that he 
always took care to have a copious supply of 
the very latest productions in the shape of 
Puritanical literature. Many of the little 
works which Wallington obtained in this way 
were really weekly newspapers in pamphlet 
form, in which the events of the day were 
generally recorded from the Puritan stand- 
point; others were of a distinctly controversial 
nature and were unsparing in their attacks 
on the doings of Laud and his followers. 
These miscellaneous publications evidently 
furnished the lighter relief of Wallington's 

43 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

somewhat drab life. When the day's work of 
turning was done, and the shop closed, he 
would retire to his study with his pamphlets, 
and for long hours, night after night, he sat 
copying into various common-place books 
such passages or incidents as took his fancy, 
adding to them confirmatory notes from his 
own experience. Such was his zeal for the 
cause, that he contracted the habit of lending 
some of his books to others, and one man 
whom he had so favoured reported Wallington 
to the dreaded Star Chamber. The books 
for the possession of which he was arrested 
included the famous "Divine Tragedy" of 
Mr. Prynne, and the Rev. Henry Burton's 
equally notorious pamphlet — books which 
probably also found a place in John Har- 
vard's home. 

When it is remembered to what an extent 
the life of the Puritan was made unbearable 
by constant if petty persecutions, all carried 
out under the cloak of zeal for the Church of 
England, it might be inferred that the bulk of 
them would have turned away from that 

44 



ENVIRONMENT 

Church in disgust. But their loyalty was 
proof against even such a test. To the end of 
his life, Wallington remained a member of the 
church in Eastcheap, and no doubt concluded 
that he had received his reward when the day 
came for him to be an eye-witness of the 
destruction of the candlesticks and the picture 
'of the Virgin Mary, and the smashing of the 
stained-glass windows, of which he secured 
some fragments as a "remembrance to show 
to the generation to come"; and we have 
documentary proof that John Harvard's father 
and family remained in faithful communion 
with St. Saviour's Church, on the other side of 
London Bridge, through all the tribulations of 
those anxious years. More than that, it is a 
significant fact that almost up to the last these 
Puritans maintained unbroken their loyalty 
to the king. When Charles had gone to 
Scotland with an army which was to repress 
freedom of religious thought there, we find 
Wallington praying that the Lord would "send 
us our King in peace." If even at that late 
stage Laud had acted upon his own professed 

45 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

belief that "differences in religion I conceived 
might better be composed by ink than blood," 
all would yet have been well. Instead, he 
elected to "bring matters to a pitch of refor- 
mation floating in his own brain." 

Such, then, was the England into which 
John Harvard was born. An England which 
was struggling grimly for each man's right to 
adjust his own relationship with God, and, 
less clearly, but none the less surely, for civil 
liberty for all men. 



46 



II 

PARENTAGE 



^Hl 



Here endeth the liberty of the Mayor 
dnd be^inneth the King's 




^ The Christopher 
S)The5pur 



i 



CHAPTER II 
PARENTAGE 

THREE years before the sixteenth 
century ended, a young man named 
Robert Harvard had established him- 
self in business as a butcher in a shop in High 
Street, Southwark, London. That house, 
which we may easily imagine as one of those 
quaint, wooden structures with overhanging 
upper story, such as were the usual abodes of 
London tradesmen in Elizabethan times, was 
to be his home for the remainder of his life. 

Prior to his appearance as a tradesman, the 
life of Robert Harvard is a blank. His father's 
Christian name and occupation, his birth- 
place and the date of his birth — all these 
particulars are at present unknown. Conse- 
quently it is impossible to say whence this 
young man derived the capital which would be 
necessary for his start in life, though one item 
of information which has been revealed by 
* 49 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

recent research may be thought to throw 
some Hght on that matter. In the month of 
August, 1592, a clothworker, Peter Medcalfe 
by name, who Hved in the parish of St. OUve's, 
not far from the High Street of Southwark, 
executed his last will, and among the various 
legacies mentioned in that document is the 
following: "I give and bequeath unto Robert 
Harvard, a boy which I keep, the sum of 
five pounds lawful money of England, to be 
paid unto him at his age of one and twenty 
years. So that he be ordered and ruled by my 
executrix, and that he do live to accomplish 
the age of one and twenty years aforesaid." 
It is true that in the original will the name of 
the "boy" is given as "Harvey," but in such 
documents, and also in parish records of those 
times, the name which we know certainly to 
be intended for Harvard is variously spelt as 
"Harwod," "Hervy," "Harwar," "Harward," 
"Hervard," "Harvye," "Harvey," etc. In 
fact, it is not unusual for the name to be spelt 
in at least two different ways in one and the 
same document. Those were happy days for 

50 



PARENTAGE 

people who were shaky in orthography. 
Among the very few books in general circula- 
tion, such a thing as a dictionary was practi- 
cally unknown; and even if that had not been 
the case, the spelling of surnames remained a 
matter of personal caprice for many genera- 
tions. Hence no objection can be raised to 
the "Robert Harvey" of Peter Medcalfe's 
will being regarded as the Robert Harvard of 
High Street, Southwark. 

No reference whatever is made to the lad 
being an apprentice; that would have involved 
a difficulty in the form of a change of occupa- 
tion; whereas Mr. Medcalfe merely describes 
his legatee as " a boy which I keep," an expres- 
sion which would harmonise with Harvard 
having been committed to his care as an 
orphan. Altogether, then, there are no insu- 
perable obstacles in the way of this lad being 
the Robert Harvard who had begun business 
on his own account in 1597. 

Now, as has been proved in the case of 
Nehemiah Wallington cited in the previous 
chapter, it was not unusual in those times for 

51 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

a man to celebrate his majority by setting up 
in business. If Robert Harvard began his 
career as a tradesman when he was twenty- one, 
that would show him to have been born in 1576, 
and consequently in 1592, the date of Peter 
Medcalfe's will, he would only have reached 
his sixteenth year, and so might naturally have 
been designated "a boy." Presuming, then, 
that the legatee of the Medcalfe will was the 
young tradesman with whom we are concerned, 
the "five pounds lawful money of England" 
shows whence a part at least of his capital was 
derived. That may, indeed, have been nearly 
if not quite the total amount. Nor was it an 
inconsiderable or inadequate sum. For a 
butcher in the twentieth century to commence 
business with a capital of five pounds would 
doubtless be to court speedy disaster; but the 
value of money in the sixteenth or seventeenth 
century was fully eight times its value in the 
present age. And many flourishing businesses 
have been reared on foundations of even less 
value than forty pounds. 

Even so, and no matter whence Robert 
52 



PARENTAGE 

Harvard derived his capital, a study of the 
trade conditions of Southwark at that time 
suggests the question — did he make a wise 
choice of a business ? In the late sixteenth 
and early seventeenth centuries, butchers' 
shops were ubiquitous in Southwark. Along 
the High Street, almost every third or fourth 
building seems to have been occupied by a 
"flesh- monger," and one of Harvard's brothers 
appears to have followed that business in prem- 
ises not far from his own. When it is re- 
membered, also, that the population of South- 
wark at that time did not exceed five thousand 
persons, it is rather perplexing at first to under- 
stand how these numerous butchers managed 
to make a livelihood. 

What has to be borne in mind, however, is 
that in addition to its normal five thousand, 
Southwark could always count upon an impor- 
tant and numerous floating population. For all 
the south and west of England, and even for 
the Continent of Europe, this High Street where 
our young butcher began business was the 
gateway into London. By this time, too, " Lon- 

53 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

don had developed into the general mart of 
Europe, where the gold and sugar of the New 
World were found side by side with the cotton 
of India, the silks of the East, and the woollen 
stuffs of England itself." As has been stated, 
London Bridge was the only causeway over the 
Thames, and the countless traders who had 
business in the capital would be obliged to use 
this route coming and going. One of the natu- 
ral consequences of this constant traffic shows 
-itself in the numerous inns of the neighbour- 
hood. They appear to have been almost as 
ubiquitous as the butchers' shops. Indeed, 
the presence of the former accounts for the 
latter. Purveyors of food may naturally be 
expected to cluster in the near vicinity of 
houses of public entertainment. Such, at any 
rate, was the case in Southwark in Robert 
Harvard's time. 

Nor should it be forgotten that the most 
famous, and perhaps the most frequented of 
all London inns, the Tabard, was within a 
few hundred yards of Harvard's shop. Who 

can forget that, each year, 

54 



PARENTAGE 

" Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote 
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote," 

this was the favourite inn with all those who 
set their faces towards Canterbury? This, 
of course, was that "gentil hostelrye" where 
Chaucer assembled his famous tale- telling 
pilgrims together; where on the evening be- 
fore their departure 

" Greet chere made our hoste everichon. 
And to the soper sette he us anon ; 
And served us with vitaille at the beste." 

True, nearly two centuries had passed away 
since the Canterbury pilgrims had made the 
Tabard Inn famous, but that was all to the 
good of the tradesmen who supplied those 
"vituals of the best" which made its suppers 
the talk of every pilgrim. Notwithstanding, 
too, that a change in religion had taken place 
and somewhat deposed the Kentish shrine from 
its exalted position, we may be certain that the 
pilgrims continued even if the motive which 
originally prompted the journey had undergone 
a transformation. A well-worn path is not 
quickly deserted. 

55 



JOHN HARVAKD AND HIS TIMES 

In addition to these constant streams of 
traders and travellers and pilgrims with their 
bodily wants, all to the good of the inn- keepers 
and butchers of Southwark, there was another 
reason why the neighbourhood was so good for 
trade. Along the south shore of the river 
Thames, Bankside as it was called, and west- 
wards from where St. Saviour's Church still 
stands, and indeed throughout the entire dis- 
trict of Southwark, stood the town houses of 
the leading ecclesiastics of the southeast of 
England. Not far from the church was Win- 
chester Palace, the metropolitan home of the 
bishop of the diocese; the bishop of Roches- 
ter had his London house close by; and in 
the immediate neighbourhood were the town 
residences of the abbots of St. Augustine of 
Canterbury, of Lewes, of Hyde, of Waverley, 
and of Battle. It has been seen that when 
Laud was appointed bishop of St. David's he 
yet spent nearly all his time in London, and 
he was not alone among the superior clergy in 
manifesting a preference for Court life. Even 
apart from personal inclination, the duties 

56 



PARENTAGE 

of the bishops and abbots necessitated their 
presence at Parliament and Court, and con- 
sequently these town houses at Southwark 
were frequently in use. It should be remem- 
bered, too, that in those days high ecclesiastics 
never travelled without a numerous retinue of 
attendants and servants, and thus altogether 
it is not difficult to understand why trade was 
so brisk in the vicinity of Robert Harvard's 
shop. Moreover, that particular period of 
English history was marked by an enormous 
increase in the consumption of meat. The 
people generally were abandoning the use of 
salt- fish in favour of those "great shins of beef" 
which so revolted the artistic temperament of 
Benvenuto Cellini. Even if these considera- 
tions had not justified Robert Harvard in his 
choice of a trade, that he had made a wise one 
was to become obvious when the time came for 
him to write his will. 

That prosperity was not long in waiting 
upon the efforts of the young tradesman seems 
an obvious inference from the fact that in 
June, 1600, he increased his liabilities by mar- 

67 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Tying. His choice of a partner rested upon 
one "Barbara Destyn," who has left no me- 
morial of her life story save a few dates in the 
records of St. Saviour's Church. It was in 
that building the wedding took place, and 
naturally so, seeing that it was only a stone's 
throw from the bridegroom's home. Less 
than a year after the marriage, the records of 
St. Saviour's show that a daughter, Mary, was 
born to the young couple ; and fourteen months 
later a son, to whom his father's Christian 
name was given, was presented at the font 
for baptism. For this Robert Harvard, how- 
ever, only a brief spell of life had been ap- 
pointed; in two weeks he was dead, and little 
Mary Harvard was once more the only child 
in the house. Some thirteen months later 
there was to be another break in that small 
family circle. In the autumn of 1603, London 
had a serious visitation of the plague, so serious 
that the Globe Theatre near by — which must 
soon figure conspicuously in this story — was 
ordered to be closed. Many victims fell to 
the scourge in Southwark, and among them 

58 



PARENTAGE 

was the young wife of Robert Harvard. Thus, 
after a married life of little more than three 
years he is a widower, with a two-year-old 
infant added to his responsibilities. 

Widowers of the seventeenth century, and 
widows too, for the matter of that, as a rule 
do not seem to have unduly protracted their 
mourning. It is quite a common thing to 
find them remarrying within the space of a 
few months. Robert Harvard, however, not- 
withstanding the care of an infant needing 
a mother's oversight, allowed a year and a 
half to elapse ere he espoused a second wife. 

At that period of English history, when there 
were so few facilities for travel, it will be found 
that tradespeople generally married some one 
of their own immediate neighbourhood; the 
cases are very rare of a bride being sought a 
hundred miles away; and yet, for his second 
wife, Robert Harvard was to marry a young 
woman whose home was in a quiet country 
town, at least that distance from London. 
Considering all the circumstances, it is not 
unnatural to wonder how the young trades- 

59 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

man of Southwark came to know and then 
to marry Katherine Rogers, of Stratford- on- 
Avon. Nor are there insuperable objections 
to the introduction having been effected by no 
less a person than William Shakespeare. It 
is true, there is no actual documentary evi- 
dence that Shakespeare helped Robert Har- 
vard to find his second wife in Katherine 
Rogers, but the circumstantial evidence which 
maybe adduced in favour of such a theory seems 
to be so conclusive in its cumulative effect that 
it is at least worthy of impartial consideration. 
At the outset it is necessary to take a glance 
at Stratford- on- Avon in the beginning of the 
second half of the sixteenth century. In those 
days the population of the town did not ex- 
ceed two thousand souls all told, including 
infants, and it is necessary to insist that in a 
rural community of that size all the inhabi- 
tants of the same station in life would be in- 
timately known to each other. This is most 
emphatically true of an English country town 
of such a size in the present day, when indi- 
vidualism is supposed to have effected so much 

60 



PARENTAGE 

in the direction of isolation; much more was 
it true in the sixteenth century, when the gov- 
ernment of small communities was intensely 
collective in its spirit. Social distinctions, too, 
were more marked in those days, and if there 
was one class in a town bound together by 
common interests, it was that of the trades- 
people. Hence, we are on sure ground in 
drawing the conclusion that the tradespeople 
among a total population of two thousand souls 
were all well acquainted with each other. 

Such a presumption is all the stronger in the 
case of two tradesmen who are of the same 
generation. It is conceivable that a veteran 
of sixty might not possess many interests in 
common with a youth of one- and- twenty; but 
when the ages of two business men in a small 
town nearly approximate, it will follow almost 
inevitably that friendship will exist between 
them. Now, in the persons of John Shake- 
speare and Thomas Rogers we have two trades- 
men of whom that fact holds good. These two 
inhabitants of Stratford- on- Avon were married 
within five years of each other, and as in each 

61 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

case it was a first wife they espoused, it is not 
illogical to conclude that there was little dif- 
ference between their ages. As John Shake- 
speare was the first to marry and the first to 
die, he may be granted to have been the senior 
by a few years. For forty years, however, he 
and Thomas Rogers lived and carried on busi- 
ness in the same town. 

Both these men were of the trading class. 
John Shakespeare appears to have combined 
several occupations, including those of a 
glover, a butcher, and a general dealer in 
malt, wool, and corn; while Thomas Rogers 
was of the yeoman class, and hence would fre- 
quently have for disposal some of the com- 
modities in which John Shakespeare dealt. 
It is practically certain also that until he built 
his house in the High Street, Thomas Rogers 
lived in the same thoroughfare, Henley Street, 
as that in which John Shakespeare had his 
home. 

Apart, however, from their being near neigh- 
bours, and from business transactions bringing 
them often together, in due time both John 

62 



PARENTAGE 

Shakespeare and Thomas Rogers attained to 
office in the corporation of the town, and each 
eventually reached the position of alderman. 
As they were such close contemporaries, it is 
more than probable that they were often as- 
sociated together in controlling the affairs of 
the town from an official standpoint. That 
John Shakespeare was friendly with a Henry 
Rogers is proved beyond question by the 
records of Stratford-on-Avon, and as in so 
small a town those of the same name were 
usually relatives, that fact may be cited as an 
additional proof of friendship between John 
Shakespeare and Thomas Rogers. 

Further, it is a common experience that 
friendship between adults frequently grows 
out of friendship between their children, and 
in the fact that the sons of these two trades- 
men of Stratford-onAvon would undoubtedly 
attend the grammar-school of the town may 
be found another argument in favour of the 
theory now advanced. Some four years be- 
fore the marriage of John Shakespeare, the 
grammar-school of the town had entered upon 

63 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

a new lease of life, and the identical building 
in which boys of the sixteenth century were 
taught still exists in a practically unchanged 
condition. "To this school," says Mr. Sidney 
Lee, "the children of the Stratford freemen 
were sent with rare exceptions." In 1571, 
then, Master William Shakespeare, having 
now reached the necessary age of seven years, 
was enrolled among the scholars of the Strat- 
ford grammar-school, and began to store up 
those experiences which later in life were to 
prompt the picture of 

" The whining schoolboy, with his satchel. 
And shining morning face, creepmg like snail 
Unwillingly to school." 

Twelve months later his schoolmates were in- 
creased by the advent of Master Charles 
Rogers, the eldest son of yeoman Thomas 
Rogers; and in the following year Shake- 
speare's brother Gilbert attained the regula- 
tion school age. These three lads, then, 
William and Gilbert Shakespeare and Charles 
Rogers, were practically contemporaries dur- 
ing the seven years over which the curriculum 

64 



PARENTAGE 

of the Stratford grammar-school extended, and 
as they belonged to the same social stratum of 
the town a close friendship between the three 
may be postulated with great certainty. 

Succeeding children of the Shakespeare and 
Rogers families were to be schoolmates under 
the same roof. Richard Shakespeare, who 
was born in 1574, no doubt found a playmate 
in Richard Rogers, who was a year younger; 
then the last of the Shakespeare boys, Edmund, 
who was born in 1580, may well have found a 
friend in Edward Rogers, whose birth took 
place the year before. Only one of the Shake- 
speare daughters, Joan, lived to adult age, and 
she was born just two years before the Joan of 
the Rogers family circle. These girls may rea- 
sonably be supposed to have increased on the 
feminine side the friendship cemented by their 
brothers; and there were other daughters in 
the rather prolific Rogers family whose ages 
would not debar them from becoming play- 
mates of the two Joans. 

When William Shakespeare left Stratford, 
about 1585, his sister and three brothers re- 
5 65 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

mained to continue their friendship with the 
Rogers boys and girls, and it must be particu- 
larly noted that two, and two only, of those 
young people were destined to find a new home 
in that special district of London, that is, South- 
wark, with which the metropolitan life of the 
great dramatist was to be most closely associ- 
ated. One of these two was Shakespeare's 
youngest brother, Edmund, who became a 
"player" at the Globe Theatre, and, dying at 
the untimely age of twenty-eight, found a grave 
in St. Saviour's Church, Southwark, on the last 
day of December, 1607; the other was Kather- 
ine Rogers, born in 1584, who was destined to 
become the wife of Robert Harvard and thus 
to exchange her childhood's home at Stratford 
for a home as a wife at Southwark in the spring 
of 1605. That these two natives of the little 
Warwickshire town should have settled close 
to each other in the same district of London 
and not resumed the friendship of their earlier 
years seems quite improbable. 

But how, it may be asked, came Robert 
Harvard to make the acquaintance of Kather- 

66 



PARENTAGE 

ine Rogers ? To suggest an answer to that 
natural question it will be necessary to follow 
William Shakespeare to London. 

For the first year or two of William Shake- 
speare's life in London our information is ex- 
ceedingly scanty, but the purposes of this nar- 
rative are not concerned with his doings prior 
to his appearance in the Southwark district of 
the English capital. That this was not later 
than 1592 is an established fact. In February 
of that year a new playhouse, called the Rose 
Theatre, was opened at Bankside, its propri- 
etor being Philip Henslowe ; and the company 
which perfor ned at the opening ceremony was 
the band of actors known as "Lord Strange's 
men." Among those actors William Shake- 
speare had by this time attained an assured 
position, and it is the opinion of his most com- 
petent biographer, Mr. Sidney Lee, that in the 
following month his " Henry VI. " was acted for 
the first time at this particular theatre. Mr. Lee 
also says that " the Rose Theatre was doubtless 
the earliest scene of Shakespeare's pronounced 
successes alike as actor and dramatist." 

67 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Each succeeding year saw Shakespeare more 
closely identified with the Bankside at South- 
wark. In 1596 he had a lodging near the Bear 
Garden in that neighbourhood, and when the 
famous Globe Theatre was built in 1599, his 
immediate interests became more and more 
centred in the district. For not only was the 
stage of that theatre occupied chiefly by Shake- 
speare's company, but he also soon acquired 
no inconsiderable share in its profits. . It will be 
seen, then, that from 1596 onwards it is beyond 
question that Shakespeare was intimately asso- 
ciated with South wark, and up to the year 1611, 
when he practically retired to Stratford-on-Avon, 
this district undoubtedly saw more of him than 
any other in the whole of London. Not far 
from the Globe Theatre, it should be remem- 
bered, stood the home of Robert Harvard. 

Presuming, however, that Robert Harvard 
was a Puritan, what chance would he have of 
making the acquaintance of a "play-actor" 
such as William Shakespeare ? On the one 
hand, it is no doubt true that the poet's refer- 
ences to Puritans in his plays are " so uniformly 

68 



PARENTAGE 

discourteous that they must be judged to reflect 
his personal feeling"; and on the other, it is 
well known that the theatre was regarded by 
most of the Puritans with abhorrence. To 
each of these statements, however, an excep- 
tion can be proved : Shakespeare is known to 
have entertained a Puritan minister in his home 
at Stratford, which may reasonably be regarded 
as a proof that he found individual Puritans 
tolerable ; and that some Puritans looked upon 
the theatre with no ill will may be inferred from 
the example of John Milton among others. 
Apart from the fact that "Comus" and "Sam- 
son Agonistes" might be adduced as qualifying 
him for inclusion among the playwriters, no 
poet had excelled Milton, ardent Puritan 
though he was, in praise of Shakespeare. 

" What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones 
The labour of an age in piled stones ? 
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid 
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid ? 
Dear Son of Memory, great heir of fame. 
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name ? 
Thou in our wonder and astonishment 
Hast built thyself a livelong monument." 
69 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

If it is objected that this tribute refers to Shake- 
speare's writings as literature, and not to their 
association with the theatre, it may be an- 
swered that in setting forth the praise of mirth 
he gives the theatre the last and most honoured 
place : 

" Then to the well-trod stage anon. 
If Jonson's learned sock be on, 
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, 
Warble his native wood-notes wild." 

Milton, indeed, the sincerity of whose Puritan- 
ism no one will challenge, himself attended 
dramatic performances at Cambridge and in 
London, as we know from his own confessions. 
Nothing could be more unjust than to 
charge the narrowness of some Puritans to the 
account of all Puritans. There were many 
among their number who held that the graces 
of the Renascence were not inconsistent with 
the grace of the Reformation. " The figure of 
such a Puritan as Colonel Hutchinson stands 
out from his wife's canvas with the charm and 
tenderness of a portrait by Vandyck. . . . His 
artistic taste showed itself in a critical love of 

70 



PARENTAGE 

'painting, sculpture, and all liberal arts.' If 
he was ' diligent in his examination of the Scrip- 
tures,' *he had a great love for music and 
often diverted himself with a viol, on which 
he played masterly.' " If, then, there were 
some Puritans who were not averse to the 
pleasures of life, including the theatre, there 
can be no serious objection to Robert 
Harvard being numbered among those who 
frequented the Globe at Bankside now and 
then. 

Besides, it is by no means certain that this 
young tradesman was a rigid Puritan of the 
type of Nehemiah Wallington on the opposite 
bank of the Thames. Such facts as are avail- 
able appear to point in another direction. No 
trace of the peculiar phraseology of the strict 
Puritan can be detected in Robert Harvard's 
will, and, more significant still, not one of his 
seven children received a distinctively Biblical 
name. In nothing does the rigorous Puritan 
more surely reveal himself than in the names 
he bestowed upon his offspring. To him the 
Bible was not more certainly a guide to the 

71 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

world to come than it was a detailed directory 
for the affairs of the world which now is, and 
while there were so many names to draw upon 
within its covers, he doubtless thought it sinful 
to seek cognomens for his children elsewhere. 
Hence the Hephzibah, Barachiah, Zebedee, 
Habakukk, etc., with which the unfortunate 
children of that age were labelled. We seek 
in vain, however, for any of these grotesque 
appellations among the names of the seven 
children of Robert Harvard. 

Undoubtedly, then, the presumption is in 
favour of Robert Harvard being a Puritan with 
reservations — such reservations, in fact, as 
would not restrict him from enjoying an occa- 
sional visit to the Globe Theatre, or from cul- 
tivating the acquaintance of the actors them- 
selves. And it so happens that this is more 
than a presumption; it is an established fact. 
In the seventeenth century attendance at 
church was practically compulsory, and the 
most notable and the nearest church in the 
neighbourhood of the Globe Theatre was St. 
Saviour's. But we do not need to rely upon 

72 



PARENTAGE 

such circumstantial evidence to prove that 
Shakespeare and his fellow actors actually at- 
tended St. Saviour's Church, for there are doc- 
umentary proofs that such was the case. 
While there are no records to show that Shake- 
speare himself ever held an official position 
among the leading laymen of the church, there 
are such records to prove that his colleague, 
Philip Henslowe, the owner of the Rose The- 
atre, did hold such a position, and that on one 
occasion he was associated with Robert Har- 
vard in a transaction of great importance to 
the congregation as a whole. That fact prac- 
tically makes it certain that Robert Harvard 
was intimately acquainted with all the leading 
spirits at the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare of 
course included. The records of St. Saviour's 
demonstrate that for some years the temporal 
affairs of the congregation were governed by a 
group of men among whom Henslowe and 
Harvard usually figure. The others included 
John Trehearne, servant to Queen Elizabeth 
and "gentleman porter" to James I.; and 
John Bingham, who was saddler to both those 

73 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

monarchs. Shakespeare's connection with the 
Court as an actor would give him many oppor- 
tunities of cementing his friendship with those 
other Court servants who, like himself, resided 
in Southwark and attended St. Saviour's 
Church. There are, then, many cogent rea- 
sons for believing that Robert Harvard was 
among those who actually knew the great 
dramatist in the flesh. 

As has been recorded earlier in this chapter, 
Robert Harvard was left a widower in the fall 
of 1603; and the fact that he allowed some 
eighteen months to elapse ere he married again 
seems, when we bear in mind the usual speedy 
remarrying of those days, to point to some 
difficulty or hesitation in seeking a second 
wife. There is nothing improbable in Har- 
vard's protracted widowhood forming the 
theme of conversation between Shakespeare 
and himself. Perhaps, indeed, in due course 
the poet himself suggested that it was high 
time the prosperous young tradesman es- 
poused a second wife, and such a remark may 
well have prompted Harvard to ask Shake- 

74 



I 



PARENTAGE 

speare whether he could recommend a lady 
for the position. If Shakespeare had not re- 
newed his friendship with the Rogers family 
in his native town, it is conceivable that the 
existence of its numerous marriageable daugh- 
ters might have faded somewhat from his 
memory, and hence at this point it is neces- 
sary to narrate the reasons there are for be- 
lieving that the poet had renewed that early 
friendship. 

After an absence of eleven years, Shake- 
speare revisited Stratford- on- Avon in 1596. 
It is uncertain whether he returned early in 
that year, but it is practically certain that the 
death of his only son in August would occa- 
sion a second visit even if he had already been 
home earlier in that twelve months. In those 
eleven years of absence he had won not only 
fame, but substantial wealth, and hence he 
was able to lift the fortunes of his family out 
of the slough into which the ill-luck of his 
father had plunged them. If the associates 
of John Shakespeare had made good the words 
of his son — 

75 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

" Those you make friends 
And give your hearts to, when they once perceive 
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away 
Like water from ye " — 

the advent of that son, now famous and pros- 
perous, would no doubt rally them to his side 
again. But it is not necessary to imagine that 
the friendship of the Rogers family needed any 
rallying; children are not such sticklers as 
adults for the maintenance of a given social 
position; and the school-day bonds between the 
Shakespeare and Rogers boys and girls may 
be counted upon to have preserved the friend- 
ship of the families unbroken. If William 
Shakespeare would have much to narrate of 
his doings in the great world of London, it 
may be taken for granted that his brothers, 
and especially the youngest, Edmund, would 
have something to tell in turn of the history 
of their native town. 

In the particular year now in view, 1596, 
an event was transpiring in the Rogers family 
which would of itself be sufficient to arrest the 
attention of a native of the town returning 
after an absence of eleven years. Thomas 

76 



PARENTAGE 

Rogers had that year completed a new house 
in the High Street, and that it was the most 
notable example of domestic architecture in 
the town may be inferred from the fact that 
even to-day it is conspicuous among the show- 
places of Stratford- on- Avon. Rich though the 
town is in ancient buildings, there is no struc- 
ture which can display such a wealth of curious 
carving in detail, or present such an attractive 
picture as a whole. From what is known of the 
houses of Stratford in the sixteenth century, it is 
safe to conclude that this new home of the Rogers 
family must have been the talk of the town in 
the year of its completion, and there can be no 
doubt that Shakespeare took an early oppor- 
tunity of wandering through its various rooms. 
From 1596 onwards Shakespeare seems to 
have paid at least one annual visit to Stratford, 
and in 1602 he would have special business 
there in connection with the completion of his 
purchase of New Place. As these annual 
visits would provide him with many opportu- 
nities for deepening his friendship with the 
Rogers family, which now comprised ten sons 

77 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

and daughters, it is far from improbable that 
it should have occurred to him that Robert 
Harvard might find a suitable second wife 
among the latter. By 1605 two of the Rogers 
girls were married, but there still remained 
three of a marriageable age, one of whom, 
Katherine, was in her twenty-first year. War- 
wickshire maidens even to this day are by no 
means the least beautiful among the daughters 
of England; and judging from her subse- 
quent conquests as a widow, Katherine Rogers 
undoubtedly possessed more than average 
attractions. For Shakespeare to have under- 
taken a description of her charms would have 
been more than ample inducement to start 
Robert Harvard on a hundred- mile journey 
in quest of a second wife. No evidence is 
forthcoming to show that the Harvards had 
any previous connection with Stratford- on- 
Avon, and when all the foregoing circum- 
stances are taken into account, it is not un- 
reasonable to conclude that Robert Harvard 
was introduced to the household of Thomas 
Rogers by William Shakespeare. 

78 



PARENTAGE 

Although he was a widower with a four- 
year-old daughter, and was at least in his 
twenty- ninth year, Robert Harvard's wooing 
of Katherine Rogers, not yet one- and- twenty, 
did not fail of complete success. That he had 
already built up a lucrative business seems 
more than probable, and there is every reason 
to imagine him as a likeable man, else had he 
been no friend of Shakespeare. His con- 
quest of Katherine under all the circum- 
stances speaks much in his favour. The fact 
that their homes were so far apart proves, in 
view of the irksomeness of travelling in the 
seventeenth century, that there were no liberal 
opportunities for courtship, and no doubt 
Robert Harvard was not the man to neglect 
his business. Perhaps his was another ex- 
ample of Veni, Vidi, Vici. At any rate, on 
the eighth day of April, 1605, a bridal party 
set out from that picturesque home of Thomas 
Rogers in the High Street of Stratford, and at 
the altar of Holy Trinity Church, close beside 
the spot where eleven years later to the very 
month the body of William Shakespeare was 

79 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

to be laid to rest, Robert Harvard and Kathe- 
rine Rogers took one another for husband and 
wife. When the young wife passed once more 
through the portals of her girlhood's home it 
was with no prevision that the ceremony in 
which she had taken part a few minutes 
earlier would result, nearly three centuries 
hence, in that building being known as the 
"Harvard House." 

In her new home at Southwark Katherine 
Harvard would not be quite friendless. Even 
if the claims upon William Shakespeare's 
time left him few opportunities to visit Rob- 
ert Harvard's house, his young townswoman 
would see him frequently in St. Saviour's 
Church on Sundays ; and by this date Edmund, 
the youngest of the Shakespeare brothers, had 
made his way to London and started on his 
career as an actor. He, at any rate, might 
be relied upon to avail himself of the hospi- 
tality of his old friend from Stratford- on- 
Avon. 

Some seventeen months after her arrival 
in Southwark, Katherine Harvard found her 

80 



-; <fi 















^ '^x CK- TJs ON 




PARENTAGE 

duties as a hostess overshadowed by her re- 
sponsibilities as a mother, her first child, 
Robert, being baptized on the 30th of Sep- 
tember, 1606. Fourteen months later this 
entry was made in the baptismal records of 
St. Saviour's Church: "1607 November 29 
JOHN HARVYE S. of Robt. a Butcher." 

Hardly had the future benefactor of learning 
in the great Republic of the West completed 
the first month of his life than the rooms of 
the house in which he lay echoed one morn- 
ing with the doleful knell of the great bell of 
St. Saviour's Church. On that December 
morning a company of mourners were as- 
sembled around an open grave in that sacred 
building. Among them stood William Shake- 
speare, watching with sad eyes the lowering 
of the coflSn containing the body of his favourite 
brother Edmund. Nor is it improbable that 
Robert Harvard stood close by, in sympathy 
with the sorrow of his friend, and as repre- 
senting that household in Stratford-on-Avon 
which had given him a wife, and the dead 
actor many a playmate. 
6 81 



Ill 

EARLY INFLUENCES 



CHAPTER III 
EARLY INFLUENCES 

ON the principle of the proverb that 
" one good mother is worth a hundred 
schoolmasters," there are no obsta- 
cles to our believing that John Harvard had a 
particularly fortunate childhood. It is true 
there is only one document in existence from 
which we can form any idea of Katherine Har- 
vard's character, and it may be granted that a 
will is generally an unreliable witness in such 
cases; but there are many exceptions to such 
a rule, and these are mostly self-evident. 
Katherine Harvard's last testament seems to 
belong to that class. By reading between the 
lines it becomes clear that she was a woman 
of sincere and simple piety; was greatly at- 
tached to her friends ; and had a special affec- 
tion for her second son. 

A comparative study of the wills of this pe- 
riod shows that the exordium generally fol- 

85 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

lowed a stereotyped form of expression; in a 
dozen such documents the opening sentence 
will scarcely vary by a word ; but the proem of 
Katherine Harvard's will is so definite in its 
profession of faith that evidently it was not the 
work of a mere scrivener. "I bequeath my 
soul," she said, "into the merciful hands of my 
dear Redeemer Jesus Christ, the eternal Son 
of God, who by his Holy Spirit, as my trust 
and hope is, will preserve me to his heavenly 
kingdom." In the legacies enumerated both 
the ministers of St. Saviour's Church are re- 
membered liberally, and one of them is spe- 
cially favoured. Not only is his wife to have 
Mrs. Harvard's "best gold-wrought coif," but 
he himself, in addition to a money gift, is to 
receive the donor's "pair of silver-hafted 
knives." Apart from the two sons, no other 
legatees have such care bestowed upon their 
gifts as this minister and his wife, an attention 
which points to a warm friendship on Mrs. 
Harvard's part. If, indeed, the terms of this 
will are pondered in connection with the ex- 
pressions used towards the writer in the testa- 

86 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

merits of her three husbands and in the pro- 
vision they made for her, the conclusion is 
irresistible that she realised the type of a true 
wife, and that her home was **a sacred place, 
a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watched 
over by Household Gods, before whose face 
none may come but those whom they can re- 
ceive with love." 

Fortunate in his mother, John Harvard was 
also favoured in not being an only son. If there 
had not been other children to share his par- 
ents' affection, and participate in the gifts of 
friends, he might never have learnt the virtue 
of generosity. When he was born he had a 
half-sister, Mary, who was in her seventh year, 
and a brother, Robert, more than twelve 
months old, to keep him company from his 
first moments of consciousness. Two years 
later another brother, Thomas, came to join 
the band; a sister, Katherine, arrived in 1612; 
and just as John would be beginning his 
school-life a third brother, Peter, was born. 
Up to the year 1625 this family circle of four 
sons and two daughters was unbroken. 

87 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

When John Harvard commenced his school- 
life, most probably in the early days of 1615, 
just after the completion of his seventh year, 
the fact that his brother Robert was already a 
year advanced in his education would spare 
him much of the misery of first days among 
strange and unsympathetic companions. For 
there can be no doubt that all the Harvard boys 
would receive their early education at the same 
academy, namely, the St. Saviour's grammar- 
school, of which their father, Robert Harvard, 
was a governor. 

Thanks to the ancient records of that institu- 
tion, it is possible to arrive at a fairly adequate 
conception of John Harvard's school-days. 
The governors appear to have entertained a 
lofty ideal of what the character and accom- 
plishments of a schoolmaster should be, and 
the scholars were indeed fortunate if ever that 
ideal came within measurable distance of 
being realised. On the side of character, it 
was insisted that the master should be sound 
in the Christian religion ** according to the law 
of the land," a proviso which is not without 

88 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

suggestlveness as to the kaleidoscopic changes 
which characterised those times. He was also 
to be "sound in body and mind"; sober, 
honest, virtuous, and discreet; gentle in his 
conversation; of a wise, sociable, and lov- 
ing disposition, devoid of hasty temper; and, 
above all, he was to possess great dexterity in 
discerning the individual temperament of his 
pupils, and be skilful in teaching and profiting 
them. The governors were not without suspi- 
cion that such an epitome of all the virtues 
might be difficult to discover, for they wisely 
added the saving clause, "if such may be 
gotten." 

No conditions, however, were attached to 
the catalogue of the accomplishments which 
were required of the master of St. Saviour's 
grammar-school. He was to be a Master of 
Arts, skilled in Latin, and thoroughly compe- 
tent to teach grammar, oratory, poetry, Greek, 
and the principles of Hebrew. For all these vir- 
tues and attainments the salary of twenty pounds 
a year was offered, which, meagre though it may 
seem to modern eyes, was twice the sum given 

89 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

only half a century before to the head-master 
of Eton. The second master of the school, or 
usher, was to receive ten pounds a year, but his 
income was augmented by the fourpence a 
quarter which each scholar was to pay for his 
special benefit. If the usher was required to 
possess character and attainments in propor- 
tion to his salary, the governors may be cred- 
ited with a desire to obtain full value for their 
thirty pounds a year. 

At no time were the scholars to exceed one 
hundred in number, and preference was al- 
ways given to the children of parishioners. 
Judging from the almost universal rule of 
those days, the age of admission would be fixed 
at seven years, but even at that early period 
the pupils were required to be prodigies of 
learning. Before they could gain admission, 
they were required to be able to read English 
well, to write a legible hand (a matter, by the 
way, on which they seem to have held lax 
opinions three centuries ago!), and be com- 
petent to be entered straightway in Latin 
accidence. 

90 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

Such, then, we may conclude, were the rudi- 
ments of learning possessed by the youthful 
John Harvard when he presented himself for 
his first day at St. Saviour's grammar-school. 
On that occasion he would have to take with 
him the sum of two shillings and sixpence, 
the fee which every scholar was required to 
pay the master on entrance, and the little 
satchel slung over his shoulder contained that 
morning, in addition to school-books, and pens 
and ink and paper, a "little Bible" — most 
probably the Geneva Bible, the popularity of 
which remained unaffected even by the pub- 
lication of the Authorized Version. As our 
young scholar began his schooling in the win- 
ter, his satchel would also contain a supply of 
"good candles," for in the long school-hours 
of those austere times many lessons would have 
to be conned by candle-light, and the pupils 
themselves were required to furnish the source 
of that illumination. John Harvard, indeed, 
would ponder his first lesson in school by 
candle-light, for even in the winter months 
the scholars had to be at their desks by seven 

91 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

o'clock in the morning. At eleven o'clock les- 
sons were suspended for dinner, to be resumed 
again at one and continued until five. During 
the summer months, however, the grammar- 
school day extended to ten hours, that is, from 
six to eleven, and then from one to six. Not 
an unfitting early discipline, this, for one who 
had the hard conditions of New England fife 
before him. 

In this somewhat sombre picture of John 
Harvard's school-life one has to look very 
closely to detect any lighter relief. Save on 
entrance days, and once a quarter when four- 
pence had to be forthcoming for the usher, 
and twopence as a contribution to the supply 
of brooms "and rods," no scholar was allowed 
to bring money to school, or to buy or sell 
there. For John Harvard, then, there were 
none of those rare "bargains" which con- 
tribute not a little to the delight of the modern 
schoolboy's life. Did he realise the satire of 
the regulation which prohibited him from 
taking pocket-money to school save on those 
quarter-days when he helped to buy a rod for 

92 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

his own back? Perhaps, however, ignorant 
of more lenient ways, he found ample enjoy- 
ment in the weekly break for play, even al- 
though the games in which he indulged were 
rigidly regulated by the laws of the school. No 
pupil was allowed to participate in any game 
for money, a restriction which seems to confer 
antiquity on "pitch and toss"; and recrea- 
tions undertaken for "betters," that is, to show 
you could do something better than any one 
else, were also prohibited. But the boys might 
leap, or run, or wrestle, or shoot with long 
bows, or play chess to their heart's content. 

Apart from the weekly vacation for such 
pastimes, John Harvard could look forward 
to only two breaks in his school-year. On 
one of those occasions he would be marched 
off, with his fellow scholars, to hear the ora- 
tions at the election days of the Merchant 
Taylors' and Westminster schools. The other 
event, anticipated no doubt all the more 
eagerly because of its rarity, was the breaking- 
up of the school for its annual week's holiday 
in the month of September. 

93 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TII^IES 

No doubt that yearly holiday was all the 
more welcome because it ensured freedom 
from school at the time of the famous Lady 
Fair of Southwark. Even in John Harvard's 
days this fair could boast an antiquity of a 
century and a half, and hence it had become 
exceedingly popular and was always attended 
by great crowds of people. As it was a gen- 
eral fair for all kinds of goods, it appealed to 
all classes of people, and the Harvard boys 
would derive unstinted amusement from wan- 
dering amid its streets of booths, and listen- 
ing to the flowery orations of the showmen 
setting forth the unrivalled attractions of their 
own particular entertainments. Much inno- 
cent mirth may be enjoyed at the fairs which 
are still held in the rural districts of England, 
many of which repicture the sights and sounds 
which John Harvard saw and heard every year 
at Southwark. Somehow, these are among 
the least changed of the survivals of the 
past. 

An ancient bird's-eye view of Southwark 
enables us to imagine the outward environ- 

94 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

ment of John Harvard's daily life for the two 
hours during which he was free from school. 
This particular picture was drawn in the year 
1616, that is, in Harvard's ninth year, and the 
standpoint of the artist embraces that part of 
the Southwark High Street which would be 
visible from the windows of the boy's home. 
Up the street, to the right, stands the gateway 
to London Bridge; and from the summit of 
that gatehouse project eighteen poles adorned 
with as many human heads. No one, how- 
ever, seems to pay any particular attention to 
those gruesome objects; it is too common an 
experience for malefactors' heads to be hoisted 
to that bad eminence. On either side of the 
street many of the numerous inns of the neigh- 
bourhood are in full view ; at the door of one a 
horseman has stopped for refreshment, and on 
benches outside other men are seated for more 
leisurely drinking and conversation. Two 
boys appear in the picture enjoying their brief 
respite from the grammar-school, and they are 
engaged in occupations which are not yet out 
of date : one is driving a hoop before him, and 

95 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

the other is attempting to achieve a surrepti- 
tious ride at the back of a covered waggon. 
Meanwhile, the more industrious members of 
the community are represented by a man who 
is pushing along a heavily-laden barrow, and 
by women and men who are attending to cus- 
tomers at two or three long stalls which stand 
in the middle of the street. Such are some of 
the sights which daily fill the boyish vision of 
John Harvard. 

Notwithstanding the absence of newspapers 
in the early seventeenth century, any event of 
importance to the nation at large quickly be- 
came public property, and the subject of dis- 
cussion all over England. This was specially 
so in London, then, as. now, the centre of 
interest. Among the topics which formed the 
theme of universal conversation in the metrop- 
olis in 1618, none absorbed more general at- 
tention than the interference of James I. with 
Sunday observance. So widely had the spirit 
of Puritanism leavened the nation that in- 
dulgence in games on Sunday was regarded 
by many with abhorrence. But this did not 

96 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

suit the temperament of the king. In every 
way he seemed to look upon his advent to the 
throne of England in the light of an oppor- 
tunity to run counter to all the conditions by 
which he had been restrained in Scotland. 
Under the plea, then, that indulgence in games 
would better fit his subjects for a time of war, 
he issued a declaration giving every one lib- 
erty to take part in certain sports every Sunday 
at the close of divine service. Not content 
with merely issuing this declaration, the king 
also ordered it to be read in every parish 
church throughout England. This, however, 
the majority of the clergymen in London re- 
fused to do, nor could fines, suspension, or 
imprisonment bend them to the king's will. 
Further, one Sunday while the dispute still 
ran high, the Lord Mayor of London refused 
to allow the king's carriages to proceed through 
the streets of the city during the hours of divine 
service. All these incidents would be often de- 
bated in the hearing of John Harvard, and thus 
early in life would accustom him to the thought 
that there were some matters in which not even 
^ 97 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

a king could interfere with impunity. It was 
not long, too, ere the lad would learn some- 
thing about that Great Protestation in the 
House of Commons to which reference has 
already been made. 

A few days before John Harvard reached 
his sixteenth birthday, an event happened 
which was then and for long afterwards 
regarded as an evidence of Divine anger 
against the adherents of the Pope. Ad- 
joining the house of the French Ambassa- 
dor at Blackfriars, which was only a few 
minutes' walk from Harvard's home, was a 
large upper room sometimes used by Roman 
Catholics as a place of worship. On the after- 
noon of Sunday, October 26th, 1623, a larger 
crowd than usual had been attracted by the 
news that Father Drury, a well-known Jesuit, 
would preach, and it was while he was in the 
midst of his sermon that the floor of the room, 
without so much as a ''charitable warning- 
groan," suddenly gave way, and the three 
hundred auditors became a heap of the dying 
and the dead. A contemporary account nar- 

98 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

rates that the preacher *' inveighed bitterly 
against Luther, Calvin, and Doctor Sutton, 
a reverend preacher sometime of St. Mary 
Overy's, in London, who, travelling beyond 
the seas, was drowned. This preacher said 
that the sea swallowed him because he was 
not worthy the earth should receive him. At 
which words the house sank." This tragic 
accident, in which more than a hundred, in- 
cluding the preacher, lost their lives on the 
spot, would have a special interest for and 
perhaps be regarded as offering a notable 
warning in the Harvard household. St. Mary 
Overy was the name by which St. Saviour's 
Church was known in those days, and hence 
all the Harvard family would be well ac- 
quainted with the Dr. Sutton who had 
adorned the denunciation of the unfortunate 
Father Drury. 

Only a few weeks before, the whole of Lon- 
don had been deeply stirred by the arrival, 
brideless, of Prince Charles, soon to be Charles 
I. In the spring of that year it became known 
that the heir to the English throne had gone to 

99 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

the Court of Spain to woo the Infanta as his 
bride. By far the majority of the nation were 
aghast at the prospect of a Roman CathoHc 
queen, especially the Puritans. To their vis- 
ion, the skies were yet lurid with the martyr 
flames of the "bloody Mary's" reign. No 
wonder, then, that they listened with breath- 
less interest to every item of news from Spain. 
Never were the churches so crowded, and for 
nothing did the Puritans pray more earnestly 
than that this evil wedding might be brought to 
naught. At last came the news that the prince 
was returning, and when he actually landed in 
London without the bride whose coming had 
been so dreaded, the whole city went wild with 
joy. The bells in the church steeples pealed 
out their merry chimes all the day long, busi- 
ness came to a complete standstill, and that 
peaceful saturnalia of heartfelt rejoicing con- 
cluded with such a glowing girdle of bonfires as 
even London had rarely seen. In many an after 
year John Harvard would be able to recall the 
excitement of that memorable episode. 

For it should be recollected that he was 
100 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

now of an age when he would take his place 
regularly every Sunday among the worship- 
pers of St. Saviour's Church, and hence had 
shared to some extent in the depression which 
the prospect of that ill-assorted marriage 
had created. Year by year his father had 
taken an increasingly prominent position 
among the vestrymen or wardens of the 
church, and there are many indications that 
the family were on terms of special friendship 
with both the chaplains of St. Saviour's. Per- 
haps that friendship was not so close with the 
Dr. Thomas Sutton, already mentioned, as with 
some of the succeeding ministers. That di- 
vine was eulogised for his "smooth and edify- 
ing way of preaching," but there is evidence 
on record to prove that his discourses did not 
always merit the first adjective. No doubt the 
Roman Catholic view of his preaching as being 
"froward" was not wholly impartial, but there 
seems to have been little justification and less 
discretion in an embittered attack he made 
upon the actors who were associated with the 
Globe Theatre. 

101 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Evidence has already been adduced to show 
that the leading actors of the Bankside the- 
atres regarded St. Saviour's as their favourite 
church. Here they worshipped Sunday by 
Sunday; here they brought their children for 
baptism ; here, when the curtain of life fell, they 
were laid to rest. The records also show that 
these actors were not deemed unworthy to hold 
office as vestrymen or churchwardens, and on 
many occasions we find them associated with 
Robert Harvard and others in conducting im- 
portant transactions for the benefit of the con- 
gregation. Often, too, special appeals were 
made to them on behalf of the poor of the par- 
ish, and such appeals were never made in vain. 
Notwithstanding all these facts, Dr. Sutton 
seems to have made frequent and violent at- 
tacks on the theatre, attacks which he brought 
to a climax one Sunday by a sermon directed 
specially against the actors at the Globe, who 
were, he declared, undoubtedly among the 
damned. In order to sharpen the point of his 
moral, he introduced a story of a woman who 
had been seized with a fit while in a theatre, 

102 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

and represented the devil as confessing to her 
that he would not have had any power over her 
if he had not found her on his own ground. 

Robert Harvard, we may be sure, did not 
listen to that tirade with any pleasure. He was 
in a better position than Dr. Sutton to appraise 
the character of the men attacked. It is not 
improbable, too, that he might have made 
that sermon a question for discussion at the 
vestry had not Nathan Field, one of the actors, 
taken up the cudgels on behalf of his profes- 
sion. He did so in an epistle of "remon- 
strance,'* which was probably read in the 
Harvard household with as much satisfaction 
as among the writer's own colleagues. As the 
lapse of nearly three centuries has not rendered 
Field's arguments obsolete nor cooled the glow 
of his enthusiasm, a few of his cogent sentences 
will be read with interest. "Christ," he re- 
minded Dr. Sutton, "never sought the strayed 
sheep in that manner; he never cursed it with 
acclamation or sent a barking dog to fetch it 
home, but gently brought it upon his own 
shoulders. . . . Surely, sir, your iron is so 

103 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

entered into my soul, you have so laboured to 
quench the spirit, to hinder the Sacrament and 
banish me from mine own parish church, that 
my conscience cannot be quiet within me until 
I have defended it by putting you in mind of 
your uncharitable dealing with your poor pa- 
rishioners, whose purses participate in your 
contribution and whose labour you are con- 
tented to eat, howsoever you despise the man 
that gains it or the ways he gets it, like those 
unthankful ones that will refresh themselves 
with the grape and yet break and abuse the 
branches. . . . You waded very low with 
hatred against us when you ransacked hell to 
find the register wherein our souls are written 
damned, and I make no question, so confident 
am I of my part in the death and passion of 
Christ, who suffered for all men's sins not ex- 
cepting the player, that if you had with charity 
cast your eyes to heaven you might more easily 
have found our names written in the book of 
life." 

Happily John Harvard would often hear a 
more tolerant voice than that of Dr. Sutton 

104 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

speaking from the pulpit of St. Saviour's. In 
1618, Dr. Lancelot Andrewes became bishop 
of Winchester, a diocese which in those days 
included Southwark in its area, and as he was 
frequently in residence at Winchester Palace 
close by, he often preached in St. Saviour's 
Church. Bishop Andrew^es has left a fragrant 
memory in the annals of the Church of Eng- 
land. He was one of those few conspicuous 
prelates in whom character was more than 
creed. Although belonging to the same camp 
as Laud, he was a much wiser and more tol- 
erant churchman. Nor did he ever demean 
himself by becoming a mere creature of 
James I. When that monarch, the day after 
he had prorogued Parliament in a passion, 
found himself in the company of bishops An- 
drewes and Neile, he asked them," My lords, 
cannot I take my subjects' money when I want 
it, without all this formality in Parliament.^" 
Neile immediately rejoined, " God forbid. Sir, 
but you should ; you are the breath of our nos- 
trils." Turning to Andrewes, who was silent, 
James asked, "Well, my lord, what say you?" 

105 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

"Sir," replied Andrewes, "I have no skill to 
judge of parliamentary cases." But the king 
insisted upon an opinion. "No put-offs, my 
lord, answer me presently." "Then, Sir," 
said the ready bishop, " I think it lawful of you 
to take my brother Neile's money, for he offers 
it. 

With such an incident to his credit, it may 
be inferred that this was a bishop worth hear- 
ing in the pulpit. Such was undoubtedly the 
case. Even from the printed page his ser- 
mons still exhale a gentle, lovable, and tolerant 
spirit. It is easy to understand why that cor- 
pulent alderman who could not keep awake in 
church and was "preached at" in consequence, 
should appeal to Andrewes for advice; and it 
was characteristic of the man that he should 
assure the sleepy alderman that his affliction 
was only "an ill habit of body, not of the 
mind." Although he did not agree with the 
Puritans, he declared that they had "no re- 
ligion peculiar to themselves, but only a par- 
ticular form of discipline. They are," he 
added, "excessively devoted to their regimen, 

106 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

but in their document generally they are suffi- 
ciently orthodox." Andre wes was not so 
narrow-minded as to deny the character of a 
church to non-episcopal communions, nor did 
he ever abandon the doctrine of Augustine on 
predestination. Ceremonies were not every- 
thing in his eyes: "The grace of God," he said 
in one of his sermons, "is not tied to means, it 
is not bound but free, and can work without 
means either of word or sacrament; and as 
without means so without ministers, how or 
when to him seemeth good." As those words 
echoed through St. Saviour's Church, it is not 
unlikely that, after the custom of those days, 
the Harvards added their share to the applause 
which such a generous confession would in- 
evitably call forth. Andrewes had indeed set 
himself to present without controversy "the 
reasonableness and the attractions of a larger, 
freer, nobler, more generous system of teach- 
ing." Such a spirit cannot have been without 
marked influence on the character of John 
Harvard, who came under its spell in the most 
impressionable years of his life. Nor is it un- 

107 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

reasonable to believe that he reflected the tol- 
erant mood of Andrewes in the few sermons 
he was spared to preach in the New World. 
That, at any rate, is a more attractive memory 
to retain of him than would have remained had 
he bequeathed a volume of discourses perme- 
ated with the usual intolerant spirit. 

There were Sundays, no doubt, when the ser- 
mon would not arrest the attention of the young 
Harvard, and on such occasions he would prob- 
ably find other sermons in the legends on the 
notable tombs which had already found a place 
in St. Saviour's Church. The monument to 
the " industrious Gower," as Lowell so happily 
christened him, could not fail to arrest the boy's 
attention, and its inscription of "whosoever 
praith for the soul of John Gower, he shall so 
oft, as he so doth, have a M and D daies of par- 
don" would remind him of an age when a dif- 
ferent faith was preached beneath that roof. 
On another tomb, that of the Humble family, 
John Harvard would read over and over again 
the then freshly- cut letters which conveyed this 
homily on the brevity of life: 

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EARLY INFLUENCES 

" Like to the damask rose you see. 
Or like the blossom on the tree. 
Or like the dainty flower of May, 
Or like the morning of the day. 
Or like the sun, or like the shade. 
Or like the gourd which Jonas had ; 
Even so is man, whose thread is spun. 
Drawn out and cut, and so is done! 
The rose withers, the blossom blasteth. 
The flower fades, the morning hasteth. 
The sun sets, the shadow flies. 
The gourd consumes, the man he dies." 

But of all the tombs in St. Saviour's probably 
none had greater attractions for John Harvard 
than that in which Bishop Andrewes was laid. 
By the time that monument found a place in 
the church he had most likely decided upon 
his own vocation in life, and if he could not 
enroll himself in that particular regiment of 
the Christian army to which the dead prelate 
belonged, he might well desire to possess 
something of his spirit. 

Altogether apart from the sermons which 
were preached in St. Saviour's Church, it is 
helpful to remember that if there was one 
idea which, more than any other, held pos- 

109 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

session of and overmastered the majority of 
the people among whom John Harvard grew 
up to manhood, it was that conception of the 
order of the world which is called Calvinism. 
Luther had kindled the enthusiasm which 
made men possible martyrs; the Geneva re- 
former gave them the reasoned thought which 
transformed the possibility into deed. It is 
not a diflScult matter to frame an apparently 
crushing indictment of Calvinism, but there 
is no escape from that other side of the picture 
which Froude sketched in these impressive 
words : " When all else has failed — when 
patriotism has covered its face, and human 
courage has broken down — when intellect 
has yielded, as Gibbon says, 'with a smile or 
a sigh,' content to philosophise in the closet, 
and abroad worship with the vulgar — when 
emotion and sentiment and tender imagina- 
tive piety have become the handmaids of 
superstition, and have dreamt themselves into 
forgetfulness that there is any difference be- 
tween lies and truth — the slavish form of 
belief called Calvinism, in one or other of its 

110 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

many forms, has borne ever an inflexible front 
to illusion and mendacity, and has preferred 
rather to be ground to powder like flint than 
to bend before violence, or melt under ener- 
vating temptation." 

For a time, as we have seen, men were con- 
tent to bask in the new light of the Renascence. 
It was good to be awakened to the beauties of 
architecture, the charms of art, the enchant- 
ments of music, the imaginations of poetry. 
But the reaction was not long in coming. 
The men of that age had been in contact with 
stern things, and when the strain was relaxed 
-^ they needed something more satisfying than 
^ pictures and poems. It was in that hour they 
looked upon religion with fresh vision. Their 
natures had been deeply stirred, and they were 
in no mood to brook any longer that travesty 
of a faith into which the Church had degen- 
erated. Into this fertile soil the seed of Cal- 
vinism fell, with what result history records. 

Even more potent in moulding the char- 
acter of the youthful John Harvard was the 
influence of the Bible. Try as we may, we 

111 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

cannot fully realise what that sacred volume 
was to Englishmen of the seventeenth century. 
When John Tyndale addressed himself to the 
task of making good his promise that he would 
cause a ploughboy to know more of the Scrip- 
tures than many a learned divine, he quickly 
discovered that not in London nor yet in all 
England was there any room for a man to 
translate God's Word. And when his work 
was completed in his place of exile on the 
Continent, and sent to England, its principal 
reception took the form of a huge bonfire under 
the shadow of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. 
A few years later, however, Henry VIII. com- 
manded of another version of the Bible, "in 
God's name let it go abroad among our people." 
But even yet the battle was not won, for the 
sinister influence of Queen Mary intervened 
and wrought its utmost to stamp out the Word 
of God. During those years when the Bible 
hung in the balance of royal favour, now dip- 
ping to the outstretched hands of the people 
and anon mounting up beyond their reach, 
the passion for its possession grew ever 

112 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

stronger. Listen to some voices of that ac- 
tual time: "Englishmen are so eager for 
the gospel as to aflBrm that they would buy a 
New Testament even if they had to give a 
hundred thousand pieces of money for it." 
Again: "It is wonderful to see with what joy 
this book of God was received among all the 
vulgar and common people; and with what 
greediness God's Word was read. Everybody 
that could bought the book, or busily read it, 
or got others to read it to them, and divers 
elderly people learned to read on purpose. 
And even little boys flocked among the 
rest to hear portions of the holy Scripture 
read." 

Those who retain a vivid memory of the 
profound interest which was awakened by 
the publication of the Revised Version of the 
New Testament a quarter of a century ago, 
possess some slight clue to the intense excite- 
ment which swept over England when the 
Bible at last became an open book for all. 
Yet even such will fail to take full account of 
all the circumstances of that unique event. 
8 113 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

To the seeing eye, the pages of this book 
were blackened with the smoke, and charred 
with the flames, and stained with the blood 
of martyrdoms. It came, too, in an age of 
profound spiritual tension. The old faith had 
crumbled to dust, and the eyes of earnest men 
were straining into the darkness to find a new 
temple for the soul. Nor should it be for- 
gotten that the advent of the Bible took place 
at an era when lofty verse and stirring tragedy 
had created a new hunger in the hearts of 
men. To all these needs this one book gave 
a perfect answer. As it was read aloud in the 
churches, or in the family circle when the day's 
work was done, what enviable sensations took 
possession of those who heard for the first time 
the legend of the world's creation from the 
void and darkness of the face of the great 
deep; who followed with the zest of utter 
novelty the journey ings of the chosen race 
towards the promised land; who saw with 
new vision the labours and triumphs of the 
kings of Israel; whose ears drank in the 
stately cadence of Hebrew song and psalm; 

114 



EARLY INFLUENCES 

whose souls thrilled under the stern denunci- 
ations of prophets' voices or were enthralled 
with the untoward beauty of the parables of 
Christ. Coming as the Bible did to a people 
practically without books, and yearning for 
the accents of the voice of God, it is little 
wonder that the speech of those people be- 
came compact of its very words and phrases, 
or that to them this volume became not only 
a lamp to their feet in the narrow path that 
led to heaven, but also a beacon to their wan- 
derings in the world that now is. 

From his earliest days at St. Saviour's 
grammar-school John Harvard passed under 
the influence of this newly-given Bible. That 
copy of the Geneva version which he carried 
in his little satchel made the path of the reader 
easy by its copious notes of explanation. They 
told how the being planted and raised with 
Christ meant that "we grow up together with 
him as we see moss, ivy, mistletoe or such like 
grow up by a tree, and are nourished with the 
juice thereof"; and the locusts which were 
seen in the Revelation to ascend from the 

115 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

bottomless pit were interpreted for the young 
lad as "false teachers, heretics and worldly 
subtle prelates, with monks, friars, cardinals, 
patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, doctors, bach- 
elors and masters which forsake Christ to 
maintain false doctrine." Given a constant 
perusal and re-perusal of a Bible with such 
annotations there was only one goal which 
John Harvard could reach. 



116 



IV 
THE HARVARD CIRCLE 



CHAPTER IV 

THE HARVARD CIRCLE 

y4 NY day during the first week or two of 
/ ^ the month of July 1625, meal- time 
JL -Xl in the Harvard home in South- 
wark saw a little circle' of eight persons 
gathered around the table. At the head, of 
course, sits the father, now a man of about 
fifty summers. 

Robert Harvard can hardly be other than 
satisfied with his outlook on life. A large 
measure of prosperity has attended him in busi- 
ness ; he has many congenial friends ; for some 
years he has been regarded as one of the most 
respected and useful lay officials of St. Sav- 
iour's Church; and for full twenty years his 
home life has been brightened by the wife he 
fetched from Shakespeare's native town. She, 
now in her forty-first year, sits opposite him, 
and on either side of the table are the five chil- 
dren of their marriage and the one daughter 

119 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

whom his first wife bore him. That daughter, 
Mary Harvard, has reached her twenty-fourth 
year and, we may presume, has long been the 
helper of her step- mother in household duties. 
For some thirteen years, Mary has possessed a 
home companion of her own sex in little Kath- 
erine Harvard, her only half-sister. 

Four sons are also seated at this table, of 
whom the eldest, Robert, is now approaching 
his nineteenth year. As there are no indica- 
tions to the contrary, it may be inferred that he 
is destined to succeed to his father's business, 
and has perhaps already become of consider- 
able usefulness in that direction. The brother 
next to him in age is John Harvard, who is 
more than half-way through his seventeenth 
year, and has no doubt even at this stage given 
many proofs of his scholarly inclinations. On 
the other hand, Thomas, who will be sixteen 
next December, has probably expressed his 
preference for the occupation of a clothworker, 
and is looking forward to his apprenticeship 
two years hence. Peter, the baby of the fam- 
ily, is only in his eleventh year, and so must 

120 



THE HARVARD CIRCLE 

hurry back to St. Saviour's grammar-school as 
soon as dinner is over. 

In those sunny days of early July, meal- time 
was, no doubt, a happy hour for the Harvard 
family. And, when the work and the school 
of the day were past, it is not improbable that 
the long mid- summer evenings were happily 
occupied now by a pleasant row on the waters 
of the "silver-streaming Thames" close by, or 
some other time by a ramble amid the verdant 
meadows which were not far afield. Upon 
all this quiet happiness, however, a sombre 
shadow was soon to fall. 

During that summer London experienced 
the second of those three disastrous visits of the 
plague which darken the annals of the seven- 
teenth century. The first of these visitations, 
as already noted, took place twenty- two years 
earlier, and had claimed Robert Harvard's 
first wife as one of its victims. But now a 
far heavier toll was to be exacted from this 
household. 

Only the sad witness of entry after entry in 
the burial records of St. Saviour's Church sur- 

121 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

vives for the repicturing of this melancholy 
chapter in John Harvard's life, but some con- 
ception of the experiences through which his 
family passed may be derived from the narra- 
tive which Nehemiah Wallington committed 
to paper in the midst of these anxious days. 
That Puritan tradesman's house, it will be 
remembered, was only separated from the 
Harvard home by the width of the Thames, 
and consequently what he saw and heard and 
felt may well reproduce the sights and sounds 
and emotions experienced by the Harvard fam- 
ily. As soon as the plague broke out, thou- 
sands of Londoners fled, but Wallington and 
his family, as well as the Harvards, remained in 
that "doleful city, hearing of bells tolling and 
ringing out continually." Not a day passed 
without news of this friend or the other having 
succumbed to the remorseless scourge; hardly 
an hour which did not bring with it the pass- 
ing-by of a coffin. It was a common tale how 
whole families had been swept away, and how 
thirty, forty, or even sixty deaths had taken 
place in one small street. 

122 



THE HARVARD CIRCLE 

Deep anxiety, no doubt, reigned in the 
Harvard household as it did in the home of 
Nehemiah WalHngton, and under each roof 
it was probably a common reflection that 
even when the deaths decreased to two or 
three in a week, some of the victims might be 
claimed from families which had hitherto 
escaped the infection. Mrs. Wallington had 
a serving- maid who appears to have been 
somewhat careless in the discharge of her 
duties, and on one occasion when she had 
done something amiss she found herself ad- 
dressed by her mistress in these terms: "Why, 
Ruth, mend it, for how doth thou know but 
thou mayest die this sickness time, although 
the bills do grow less; and when there dieth 
but two or three in a week, you or I may be 
one of those two for ought we know, and 
therefore, let us prepare for death." 

While such exhortations were being given 
in the kitchen, the master of the house was 
meditating in his little study. "What," he 
was thinking, " if the sickness should come into 
this house; who would I be willing to spare? 

126 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Then would I say, 'the maid/ (Poor Ruth!) 
Who next? *My son John.' Who next? 
* My daughter Elizabeth.' Who next ? * My- 
self.' But what if God should strike thy wife, 
or thy father, or thy brother John? How 
would I take it then? I did think to take it 
patiently and to comfort myself in the Lord, 
considering the sorrows and troubles they were 
gone out of, and the pleasure and joy that they 
are gone into. 'For in thy presence is the ful- 
ness of joy, and at thy right hand there are 
pleasures for evermore.' Many tears did I 
shed with these thoughts, and I desired the 
Lord, if it might stand with his glory and my 
soul's good, that I might die first and never 
see that day." 

At first the anxious Nehemiah must have 
thought that the order of his sacrifice was to 
be observed, for a few days later the unfor- 
tunate Ruth complained that she had a "prick- 
ing in her neck" and was forthwith sent to bed. 
The dreaded plague had come at last. With 
Ruth in bed, there was more work for Mrs. 
Wallington, and of a kind with which she was 

124. 



THE HARVARD CIRCLE 

not usually troubled. That same evening, 
then, while in the kitchen washing up some 
dishes, her little daughter Elizabeth joined 
her, and in a merry childish mood asked, 
"What do you here, my wife?'* To her 
father, when she had been put to bed that 
night, the lively child said, "Father, I go 
abroad to-morrow, and buy you a plum pie." 
But there was to be no going abroad for little 
Elizabeth, and no plum pie for her father. 
"These were the last words I did hear my 
sweet child speak, for the very pangs of death 
seized upon her on the Sabbath day morning, 
and so she continued in great agonies (which was 
very grievous unto us the beholders) till Tues- 
day morning, and then my sweet child died." 

In the Harvard home on the opposite shore 
of the Thames death was not content with one 
victim. The first to sicken was Mary, the 
eldest of the family, who was buried on July 
22nd, 1625, and hardly could Mrs. Harvard 
realise that she had lost her own special com- 
panion when, only four days later, her husband 
was bereft of his helpful son Robert. How 

125 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

keenly the uncertainty of life was realised in 
these anxious times is shown by the fact that 
two days after his son's death Robert Harvard 
made his will. Ere, however, it could be put 
into its final form, little Katherine was taken 
from the family circle. And even yet the 
death-roll was not complete. After a three 
weeks' interval, the baby of the family, Peter, 
was laid in his grave ; and when five days more 
had elapsed the father himself was carried into 
St. Saviour's Church for burial. In less than 
five weeks the plague had exacted as many 
victims from this one happy home. Only 
Katherine Harvard and her two sons, John 
and Thomas, remained. 

In the will he executed less than four weeks 
before his death, Robert Harvard had be- 
queathed a sum of two hundred pounds to 
each of his three remaining sons, with a pro- 
viso that if either of them died his portion 
was to be divided equally among the sur- 
vivors. As Peter was already dead, John 
and Thomas were thus entitled to a sum of 
three hundred pounds each on reaching 

126 



THE HARVARD CIRCLE 

their twenty-first birthday. In the interval 
Mrs. Harvard was to have the use of those 
sums for the "education and bringing up" of 
the two lads ; but that the money might event- 
ually be forthcoming when they came of age 
the will stipulated that the mother, within three 
months of the death of her husband, or at 
the latest before she married again, was to 
become bound in a sum of one thousand 
pounds for that purpose. Having provided 
for several legacies to friends, including 
twenty shillings each to his cousin Thomas 
Harvard and to his "good neighbour and 
friend," Mr. Richard Yearwood, for "rings 
for remembrance," Robert Harvard willed all 
the residue of his possessions to his "well- 
beloved wife." No provision of any kind 
seems to have been made for carrying on the 
business in which he had been so prosperous. 
His son Robert, who might have done that, 
was dead, and neither of his other sons was 
old enough, or had shown any inclination 
for the occupation of a butcher. 

Before five months had elapsed, the eventu- 
127 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

ality which Robert Harvard had foreseen came 
to pass. Katherine Harvard mamed again. 
In the marriage register of St. Saviour's, under 
the date of January 19th, 1626, appear the 
names of John EUetson and Katherine Har- 
vard. That union, however, was not to be 
of long continuance. As she had been less 
than five months a widow, so only five months 
were to go by ere Katherine Elletson became 
a widow once more. Still, her union with John 
Elletson had achieved an important end in 
the material increase of her estate, thus con- 
siderably augmenting the fortune she was able 
to bequeath eventually to her two sons, John 
and Thomas Harvard. The will of Mr. Ellet- 
son, who was a citizen and cooper of London, 
reveals him to have been a man of consider- 
able means. He possessed house property 
in various districts of London, and land and 
houses in several of the southern counties of 
England. He also held a half share in the 
*'good Bark called the Jane of Gosport"; 
and the number of debts, several for large 
sums, which he "forgives" in his will, show 

128 



THE HARVARD CIRCLE 

him to have been not only possessed of an 
ample banking account, but also depict him 
as a generous friend and helper of those not 
so fortunately situated. 

That generosity was also freely manifested 
in his bequests to his five-months' wife. They 
included an income of twelve pounds a year 
secured by property in the county of South- 
ampton; two- thirds of the rent of some dwell- 
ing-houses in East Smithfield; the lease and 
all the rents and profits of some premises in 
All Saints Barking, held from the Master of 
St. Katherine's hospital; and all the re- 
mainder of Mr. EUetson's possessions not 
otherwise bequeathed. 

For some ten months after her husband's 
death, Katherine Elletson continued to reside 
on the north, or Middlesex, side of the Thames, 
to which she had removed on her marriage, a 
fact which explains why John Harvard de- 
scribed himself as of Middlesex rather than of 
Surrey when he entered Emmanuel College, 
Cambridge. From that circumstance it may 
also be concluded that John and Thomas ac- 
9 129 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

companied their mother when she became 
Mrs. EUetson; probably, indeed, she made 
it a condition of the marriage that she was 
not to be separated from her two surviving 
children. 

Considerable changes were in store for Mrs. 
Elletson and her two sons in the year 1627. 
Doubtless after much anxious thought and 
debate with their mother, John and Thomas 
Harvard had made final choice of their life 
occupation, the former deciding in favour of 
the ministry and the latter for the business of 
clothworker. About this time the Rev. Nicho- 
las Morton was elected one of the chaplains of 
St. Saviour's Church, with which the mother 
and her two sons had no doubt maintained a 
close connection, and it is highly probable that 
his advice was sought as to a suitable college 
for John. Mr. Morton was a graduate of 
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and had been 
a fellow there on the Dixie foundation. That 
he became a close personal friend of the family 
is obvious from the references to him in the 
wills of the mother and Thomas Harvard, and 

130 



THE HARVARD CIRCLE 

it is not unlikely that it was on his recommen- 
dation John Harvard made choice of Emman- 
uel College. Thither, at any rate, he went in 
the April of this year. 

Ere the following month closed, Mrs. Ellet- 
son had become a wife for the third time, her 
husband being Robert Harvard's "good neigh- 
bour and friend," Richard Yearwood. This 
wedding took her back once more to South- 
wark, where Mr. Yearwood was in business as 
a grocer in St. Saviour's parish. No doubt 
Thomas Harvard accompanied his mother as 
before, but after less than a month in his new 
home he bound himself apprentice for eight 
years to a clothworker of the name of William 
Cox. Thus within three months the mother 
and her two sons had each marked out a new 
path in life, and the daily companionship 
which had hitherto known no break came to 
an end. 

Apart, however, from the many friends she 
had made in Southwark as the wife of Robert 
Harvard, Katherine Yearwood had for some 
six years enjoyed a renewal of companionship 

131 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

with her sister Rose. One of the intimate ac- 
quaintances of Robert Harvard was a gold- 
smith, WiUiam Ward by name. He seems to 
have become a widower about 1620, for in 
October of the following year he married Rose 
Rogers, the youngest but one of the sisters of 
John Harvard's mother. In less than three 
years she lost her husband, but she married 
another goldsmith, Ralph Reason by name, 
and so continued to reside in London within 
easy distance of her sister Katherine's home. 
By this date, also, Mrs. Yearwood numbered 
the wife of the Rev. Nicholas Morton among 
her special friends, and of the Harvard family 
she appears to have always made a special 
confidant of her husband's cousin, Thomas. 

As was the case with her second husband, 
Richard Yearwood was a widower when he 
married Katherine Elletson, and although his 
family included a grown-up son that young man 
was hardly likely to furnish any compensation 
for the absence of her own two sons. On his 
father's testimony, he was of a "wasteful" tem- 
perament and gave little inclination of reforming 

132 



THE HARVARD CIRCLE 

and becoming a "frugal man." Owing to the 
extravagances of this son, Richard Yearwood's 
will did not add materially to the estate of his 
wife when he died in the fall of 1632. It is 
true she was allowed to continue the use of her 
husband's house in St. Saviour's parish at a re- 
duced rent of five pounds a year, but otherwise 
the total amount of her legacy seems to have 
been "all such household stuff and so much 
value in plate as she brought with her when I 
married her." Hence the assertion, so often 
made, that each of the three husbands of Kath- 
erine Rogers bequeathed her a large amount 
of property needs to be qualified so far as the 
third of those husbands, Richard Yearwood, 
is concerned. Nevertheless, her means were 
more than ample for her own needs, and also 
for the college expenses of her eldest son, John, 
whose career at Cambridge now calls for at- 
tention. 



133 



V 

CAMBRIDGE 



CHAPTER V 
CAMBRIDGE 

DANGEROUS as it generally is to in- 
dulge in sweeping generalisations, 
there can be little question that the 
broad distinction which still characterises the 
theological position of the universities of Ox- 
ford and Cambridge, held good in the main 
when John Harvard entered his name as a 
student of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, on 
April 17th, 1627. For many generations Ox- 
ford had been the home of High Churchism, 
and Cambridge the champion of the opposite 
theory of ecclesiastical doctrine. Translated 
into the nomenclature of the early seventeenth 
century, this means that while Laud and the 
king could count upon the loyal support of 
Oxford, the Puritans and the Parliamentary 
party were equally sure of the adhesion of 
Cambridge. 

137 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Still, the cause of Puritanism, even at Cam- 
bridge, was not always triumphantly in the 
ascendant. There were times when the ex- 
cesses of its zealous champions cooled the 
ardour of its less enthusiastic disciples and 
threatened a reaction in Laud's favour. At 
the Restoration, indeed, that reaction became 
an accomplished fact for a time. 

During the closing years of Elizabeth's 
reign, the pulpit of St. Mary's Church, which 
was the common platform from which the 
prevailing opinions of Cambridge University 
were enunciated to the world, often resounded 
with ultra-Puritan doctrines. Preacher after 
preacher took up his parable against abuses 
in the Church of England: one urged, only 
too effectually, the destruction of such painted 
windows as displayed the figures of saints or 
were inscribed with injunctions for prayers for 
the dead ; another declared that bishops, arch- 
bishops, and the like were the inventions of the 
devil; a third utterly condemned the practice 
of kneeling at the communion, and turning the 
face to the east ; while a fourth, after protesting 

138 



CAMBRIDGE 

against quotations in sermons from profane 
authors, gave it as his opinion that nine- tenths 
of the ministers of the Church of England were 
but "dumb dogs," and that a minister who was 
not able to preach was as useless for edification 
as an eight- year-old boy. To such a pitch, in- 
deed, did the Puritan fulminations from the 
pulpit of St. Mary's attain, that in 1603 the 
Senate passed a law debarring any future of- 
fender from proceeding to his degree. It was 
felt by the more moderate members of the uni- 
versity that theological contentions were an 
impediment to "all useful and learned stud- 
ies." One such complained "that these men 
had by their counsels so disturbed all things, 
that the time which was wont heretofore to be 
employed in good arts and sciences was now 
spent and consumed in trivial j anglings." 

During the decade which preceded the ad- 
vent of John Harvard at Emmanuel College, 
James I. had done his best to make Cambridge 
as obedient to his will as the sister university. 
While staying at Newmarket in the early days 
of December 1616, he appears to have sent for 

139 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

the heads of the leading colleges expressly to 
read them a lecture on their duties to his own 
august person. So enamoured was the king 
of the perfect wisdom of the directions he was 
pleased to utter on that occasion, that on his 
return to London a few days later he com- 
manded the Bishop of Winchester to repeat 
his homilies in writing. That prelate seems to 
have been amazed at the royal condescension, 
for he tells the Vice- Chancellor of Cambridge 
that it is without precedent that a king should 
" with his own mouth, then with his own hand" 
give such directions. It is conceivable that 
the Vice- Chancellor did not appreciate the 
honour. Disagreeable orders are not palliated 
by being written as well as spoken. 

However desirous, for worldly reasons, the 
masters of the colleges may have been to stand 
well in the king's favour, they were no doubt 
practically unanimous in thinking that favour 
was dearly purchased by the terms laid down. 
These included an injunction to the effect that 
no student should be allowed to take any de- 
gree unless he subscribed to the three Articles 

140 



CAMBRIDGE 

of Religion. Three years before the king had 
made that stipulation apply only to gradua- 
tions in divinity and the like ; now it was to be 
extended to every degree. In view of the fact 
that John Harvard had to subscribe to the 
three Articles of Religion when he took his 
B. A. degree, and again when he commenced 
M. A., the actual terms of those articles are 
worthy of quotation: 

1. "That the King's Majesty, under God, 
is the only supreme governor of this realm, and 
of all other his Highness's dominions and coun- 
tries, as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical 
things or causes, as temporal ; and that no for- 
eign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate 
hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, 
superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, eccle- 
siastical or spiritual, within his Majesty's said 
realms, dominions, and countries. 

2. "That the Book of Common Prayer, and 
of ordering of bishops, priests, and deacons, 
containeth in it nothing contrary to the Word 
of God, and that it may lawfully so be used. 

3. "That we allow the Books of Articles of 

141 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Religion agreed upon by the Archbishops and 
Bishops of both provinces, and the whole 
Clergy in the Convocation holden in London 
in the year of our Lord 1562; and acknowl- 
edge all and every therein contained, being in 
number nine- and- thirty, besides the ratifica- 
tion, to be agreeable to the Word of God. 

"We whose names are here underwritten 
do willingly and ex animo subscribe to the three 
Articles above-mentioned and to all things in 
them contained." 

How Puritans, especially of the austere type, 
could reconcile their conscience to adhibiting 
their signature to such a sweeping declaration, 
made "willingly" be it noted, might prove an 
attractive question in casuistry. There the 
articles were, however; without accepting them 
as they stood no degree could be obtained; 
and the signature of John Harvard to them is 
but one example out of many incongruous sub- 
scriptions which are still to be seen on the pages 
of the registry of Cambridge University. 

James, however, did not stop here. From 
the date of his royal mandate, no ministers 

142 



CAMBRIDGE 

were to be allowed to preach in the town save 
such as were " every way conformable both by 
subscription and every other way " ; all the 
students were to be compelled to attend the ad 
clerum discourses in St. Mary's Church, and 
indeed restrained from attending any other 
place of worship when there was a sermon at 
St. Mary's ; divinity students were to be di- 
rected to such books as were "most agreeable 
in doctrine and discipline to the Church of 
England"; and, finally, no teacher either in 
the pulpit or the schools was to be permitted 
to "maintain dogmatically any point of doc- 
trine that is not allowed by the Church of 
England." One would think that such restric- 
tions and detailed directions might have been 
relied upon to episcopalianise every student in 
Cambridge, but even yet we have not ex- 
hausted the efforts made by the king to crush 
Puritanism in that university. In a further 
order, each college master was commanded to 
celebrate Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, and 
Whitsunday in strict agreement with the ser- 
vices of the Prayer Book, and no member of 

143 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

the college or any student was to be allowed 
to absent himself from those services unless 
upon some "just and necessary occasion." 
Moreover, the communion was to be received 
kneeling, and proper surplices and hoods were 
to be worn at all the services. These orders, 
the king was considerate enough to explain, 
were designed to encourage such colleges as 
were already walking in the right path, and 
also to serve as "an injunction for speedy ref- 
ormation in such as are culpable." That the 
last phrase was inserted for the special benefit 
of John Harvard's own college of Emmanuel 
will soon become obvious. 

Under pressure from the king, whose labours 
were seconded later by Laud, some of the col- 
leges at Cambridge became tainted with the 
spirit of High Churchism, but it is a notable 
fact that neither the precepts of that party 
nor the stern doctrines of the Puritans had 
the result which might naturally have been 
expected. From the moral standpoint, the 
condition of the university as a whole in the 
early seventeenth century left much to be de- 

144 



CAMBRIDGE 

sired. Creed seems to have had little practi- 
cal influence on character. No doubt too 
much importance may be attached to the 
negative evidence furnished by such laws as 
prohibited "all manner of unprofitable and 
idle games," including bull-baiting, bear- 
baiting, and the like ; or to injunctions against 
keeping greyhounds for coursing and horses 
for hunting; but when an order is based spe- 
cifically upon a given kind of offence because 
it was the type of many more, its witness to 
the manners of the times cannot be ignored. 
On that evidence it is obvious that riotous con- 
duct among the students was of common oc- 
currence. The fact that a play or some other 
function was in progress in the hall of one 
college appears to have been the signal for 
the gathering together of the unruly spirits 
of all the other colleges, who amused them- 
selves for a couple of hours on end by "great 
outcries and shouting," by throwing stones 
through the windows of the hall where the 
play was being given, and finally by the 

uprooting of a "great post of timber" and 
10 145 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

employing it as a battering-ram against one 
of the gates of the building. 

Nor were moral offences lacking. The 
combined influences of Laudism and Puri- 
tanism could not purge the university from 
drunkenness and immorality. The former 
evil was so pronounced at one period that it 
was made the subject of a special edict, which, 
after lamenting the " waste of expense, besides 
the hurt of body and mind, and evil example 
from those that profess learning and sobriety," 
set forth a series of drastic punishments for 
future offenders. Even innkeepers who har- 
boured students on their premises "after the 
bell hath done ringing at the usual hour of the 
night" were to be fined a considerable sum. 

Two years after John Harvard had become 
a student at Cambridge, Charles I. issued an 
order specially directed against the growing 
practice of undergraduates who, "not regard- 
ing their own birth, degree, and quality, have 
made divers contracts of marriage with women 
of mean estate and of no good fame in the 
town." Innkeepers' daughters appear to have 

146 



CAMBRIDGE 

been most successful in throwing their coils 
around the j^oung scions of noble or wealthy 
families, and consequently the order was di- 
rected particularly against that class of the 
community. On the least suspicion that any 
clandestine match was in progress, or that any 
immoral intrigue was being indulged, the 
woman in question was to be banished from 
the town, or, on failure to obey that order, to 
be imprisoned. In the same mandate from 
the king, all the regulations against students 
frequenting inns to drink, play, or smoke, 
especially at night, were sternly reaffirmed. 

That all these enactments offer by inference 
no unfaithful picture of Cambridge as John 
Harvard knew it, is confirmed by independent 
testimony. Only a few years prior to that 
time, a young student, Simon D'Ewes by 
name, was entering in his carefully kept diary 
a record of his reflections at the close of his 
university career. He was not sorry to leave 
Cambridge, for, he wrote, "the main thing 
which makes me even weary of the college 
was, that swearing, drinking, rioting, and 

147 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

hatred of all piety and virtue under false and 
adulterate nicknames, did abound there and 
generally in all the university. Nay, the very 
sin of lust began to be known and practised 
by very boys; so as I was fain to live almost 
a recluse's life, conversing chiefly in our own 
college with some of the honester fellows 
thereof. But yet no Anabaptistical or Pela- 
gian heresies against God's grace and provi- 
dence were then stirring, but the truth was 
in all sermons and divinity acts asserted and 
maintained. None then dared to commit 
idolatry by bowing to, or towards, or adoring 
the altar, the communion table, or the bread 
and wine in the sacrament of the Lord's Sup- 
per. Only the power of godliness in respect 
of the practice of it, was in a most atheisti- 
cal and unchristian manner contemned and 
scoffed at." 

Seeing that each college was a self-contained 
community, controlling its own affairs to a 
large extent independently of the Senate, it 
will be interesting to gain some idea of the 
conditions which prevailed in Emmanuel Col- 

148 



CAMBRIDGE 

lege, where John Harvard spent the seven 
years of his student life. Considering the 
special purpose of its foundation, it is not 
unreasonable to expect that its internal econ- 
omy and history presented some points of 
contrast as compared with the other colleges. 

Only forty- three years had passed away 
since Sir Walter Mildmay had signed the 
foundation deed of Emmanuel. Over the 
gateway at the entrance of the building ran 
the legend, Sacrce TheologicB Studiosis Gual- 
terus Mildmaius, and if that were not suffi- 
cient to indicate the primary purpose of the 
founder, he made that object perfectly clear 
in the statute which said, "I wish all to un- 
derstand, whether Fellows, scholars, or even 
pensioners, who are to be admitted into the 
College, that the one object which I set before 
me in erecting this College was to render as 
many as possible fit for the administration of 
the Divine Word and Sacraments; and that 
from this seed-ground the English Church 
might have those that she can summon to 
instruct the people and undertake the office 

149 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

of pastors, which is a thing necessary above 
all others." Hardly could language define 
more clearly that the mission of Emmanuel 
College was to train ministers of a conform- 
ing type, and such an explicit statement might, 
one would think, have deterred Queen Eliza- 
beth from ejaculating to the founder, " I hear. 
Sir Walter, you have been erecting a Puritan 
foundation." What the Queen meant by 
Puritan differed from the interpretation given 
to that term by Sir Walter Mildmay, and hence 
the fence of- his ready reply: "No, Madam, 
far be it from me to countenance anything 
contrary to your established laws; but I have 
set an acorn which, when it becomes an 
oak, God alone knows what will be the fruit 
thereof." 

Puritan foundation, however, Emmanuel 
was, and that, without doubt, with the ex- 
press connivance of its founder. Otherwise 
it would be difficult to explain his persistence 
in combating the objections of Laurence 
Chaderton to becoming the first master of 
the college: "If you won't be master, I won't 

150 



CAMBRIDGE 

be founder." For that Chaderton was a pro- 
nounced Puritan was well known, and by no 
one more fully than Sir Walter Mildmay, who 
had been intimate with him for many years. 
He had, indeed, fought his way to that faith 
through serious obstacles. His father was a 
strict Roman Catholic, and as a lad the future 
master of Emmanuel was, in Fuller's phrase, 
"much muzzled up in Popish superstitions." 
In his student days, however, he came under 
Puritan influences, and finally decided to 
change his creed. The elder Chaderton was 
irate at the news. "Son Laurence," he curtly 
wrote, "if you will renounce the new sect 
which you have joined, you may expect all the 
happiness which the care of an indulgent 
father can secure you; otherwise, I enclose a 
shilling to buy a wallet. Go and beg." 

Chaderton no doubt devoted that shilling 
to some other end. At any rate, he had no 
need to "go and beg." He soon became a 
fellow; built up a reputation as a scholar; 
and then speedily acquired even greater fame 
as a preacher. Many stories are related of 

151 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

his influence in the pulpit, but none is more 
to his credit than that which tells how, when 
he contemplated resigning his lectureship at 
St. Clement's Church, Cambridge, he received 
an address from forty clergymen imploring 
him to postpone his resignation, and assert- 
ing that they all owed their conversion to his 
preaching. Fuller also tells how the an- 
nouncement of the conclusion of a sermon by 
Chaderton two hours in length was greeted 
by his listeners with shouts of "for God's 
sake, sir, go on, go on!" 

Under such a master, who, however, never 
renounced his connection with the Church of 
England, or associated himself with the ultra- 
Puritan attacks on prelacy, Emmanuel Col- 
lege speedily acquired a favourable reputation 
for the purity of its doctrinal tuition. And it 
remained faithful to its ideal in spite of tempta- 
tions and enemies. The temptations were crys- 
tallised on the occasion of the visit of James 
I. to Cambridge in 1615; the attacks of its 
enemies were of many dates. Oxford had 
been favoured with two visits before the king 

152 



CAMBRIDGE 

announced his intention of conferring a like 
honour on Cambridge, and hence the report 
that James had at length decided to visit the 
university inspired superhuman efforts to make 
the occasion an emphatic success. One of the 
instructions issued by the Senate recommended 
a new coat of paint for every college ; the roads 
were to be freshly strewn with gravel; and 
minute directions were formulated as to how 
the students were to dress and behave them- 
selves on this momentous occasion. From 
all this fuss, however, Emmanuel studiously 
held itself aloof. It would not even expend 
a pound of paint for the royal visit. Hence 
the point of this contemporary satire: 

" But the pure house of Emmanuel 
Would not be like proud Jesabel, 
Nor show herself before the King 
An hypocrite or painted thing ; 
But that the ways might all prove fair 
Conceived a tedious mile of prayer." 

Many proofs are available of the persistence 
of Puritan tendencies at Emmanuel College. 
One note- taker of the seventeenth century re- 

163 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

cords that while all the other colleges con- 
formed to the ordinances of the Church of 
England, in Emmanuel ** they do follow a pri- 
vate course of public prayer, after their own 
fashion, both Sundays, holy- days, and week- 
days." Further, in that college the rule as to 
kneeling at the communion was wholly ig- 
nored, and those who took part in that sacra- 
ment were charged with "sitting upon forms 
about the communion table, and do pull the 
loaf one from the other, after the minister hath 
begun." Notwithstanding the absence of 
fresh paint, James went over the buildings of 
Emmanuel on the occasion of his visit, and 
some good friend of the college called the at- 
tention of the king to the fact that the chapel 
was "far out of the eastward position." That 
busy-body, however, was rewarded with a 
snub for his pains: "God," said the king to 
Chaderton, "will not turn away his face from 
the prayers of any holy and pious man, to what- 
ever region of heaven he directs his eyes. So, 
doctor, I beg you to pray for me." It should 
be remembered that these particulars relate to 

154 



CAMBRIDGE 

the condition of the college twelve years before 
John Harvard became a student there, but that 
they apply also to his time is proved by a report 
which was made to Laud by one of his agents 
in 1636. In the category of Emmanuel's sins 
it is recorded that the chapel was "not conse- 
crate"; that "riming Psalms" were sung in- 
stead of hymns ; that the order of the calendar 
in the reading of the Bible was not followed, 
etc., etc. In fact, all through this period, 
and onwards until the Restoration, the col- 
lege maintained the reputation with which it 
was credited in the old song of "The Mad 
Puritan": 

" Am I mad, most noble Festus, 

While zeal and godly knowledge 
Has made me hope 
To deal with the Pope 

As well as the best in the college ? 

" Boldly I preach, hate a cross, hate a surplice. 
Mitres, copes, and rotchets ; 
Come, hear me pray, nine times a day. 
And fill your heads with crotchets. 

" In the house of pure Emanuel 
I had my education, 
155 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

While my friends surmise 
I dazzled my eyes 

With the light of Revelation." 

Although Chaderton resigned his master- 
ship of Emmanuel five years before John 
Harvard entered his name on its books, it is 
impossible to believe that the young student 
did not come under his influence during the 
seven years of his residence. One of the win- 
dows in the north wall of the college chapel is 
devoted to perpetuating the memory of Lau- 
rence Chaderton and John Harvard, who 
divide the lights between them, and that fact 
seems an appropriate suggestion of a life- time 
intimacy between the two men. True, the 
late master was now an old man; in the quaint 
phrase of Fuller, in these years he was " never 
seen without snow on the top"; but grey hairs 
did not indicate waning powers, for even when 
he died, in 1640, he was still in the possession 
of all his faculties. One who visited him a few 
years before his death saw him reading a Greek 
Testament of very small type without glasses, 
and specially noted that he did not repeat him- 

156 




-•1 (^ 



CAMBRIDGE 

self in conversation. Now, as Chaderton, on 
his resignation, took up his abode in a house 
near the college, and continued to take an ac- 
tive part in its affairs up to the time of his 
death, it is certain John Harvard must have 
become acquainted with him. 

Probably it will never be known why John 
Harvard did not begin his university career 
until he was in his twentieth year. Although 
it is impossible to reach any definite conclusion 
on this matter, the weight of evidence is in 
favour of the statement that sixteen was the 
average age at which students entered the uni- 
versity in the early seventeenth century. That 
Harvard's age exceeded this average by the 
large margin of four years may have been due 
to his health ; perhaps even in his youth he may 
have been subject to that delicacy which is so 
often the precursor of the fell disease to which 
he eventually succumbed. In that event, he 
would hardly be likely to make the journey 
from London to Cambridge on horseback, as 
seems to have been the usual custom, but in- 
stead probably availed himself of the services 

157 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

of Thomas Hobson, the "immortal carrier" of 
Milton's well-known verses. For full sixty 
years Hobson had journeyed regularly every 
week between Cambridge and the Bull Inn of 
Bishopsgate Street, London, and hence he was 
as famous a character in the capital as in the 
university town. He, it will be remembered, 
gave origin to the proverb about *' Hobson's 
choice." Besides being a carrier, he kept 
some forty horses for hiring purposes, and it 
was the rule of his stable that each customer 
should take the horse which stood nearest the 
stable door: no one was allowed to pick and 
choose ; it was the first horse or none, and thus 
circumstances which presented no alternative 
became "Hobson's choice." 

If John Harvard made his journey to Cam- 
bridge under Hobson's auspices, he would 
probably be some twelve hours on the road, 
and his expenditure would amount to about ten 
shillings. This was much the safest method 
of travelling in those days. Students who jour- 
neyed on horseback were specially watched 
for by highwaymen, for it was the custom of 

158 



CAMBRIDGE 

many of them to carry on their persons a sum 
of money averaging some fifty pounds, with 
which to pay their fees and expenses for the 
year. In the company of old Hobson, how- 
ever, John Harvard would have no fear as to 
the safety of his person or his purse. So long 
as that worthy carrier lived, the young student 
no doubt generally elected to travel with him 
when he went home for the Long Vacation, 
and Hobson's waggon doubtless transported 
many letters and parcels to and fro between 
Harvard and his mother. 

Out of the twenty colleges which consti- 
tute the university of Cambridge to-day, no 
fewer than sixteen were already in existence in 
1627, and although much has been accom- 
plished in improving their architectural ap- 
pearance during the intervening centuries, 
even at that far-off period their outward as- 
pect was sufficiently imposing. In the closing 
years of the previous century, indeed, the col- 
leges of Cambridge had greatly impressed the 
Frenchman, Peter Baro, who was able to com- 
pare them with similar structures on the Con- 

159 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

tinent. In the course of a sermon preached 
before the university he spoke of "the found- 
ers of your colleges, who have erected unto you 
these so sumptuous and stately buildings, and 
enriched them with such ample revenues, that 
there are scarce any in all Europe to be com- 
pared with yours." That this was not another 
example of that polite flattery in which for- 
eigners are expected to indulge, is evident from 
the testimony of a play descriptive of Cam- 
bridge life in the early part of the seventeenth 
century. One of the characters declares that 
those colleges ought to have other occupants 
than the "ragged clerks" or "weavers' and 
butchers' sons" who were mostly in evidence: 

" Knights, Lords, and lawyers, should be lodg'd and dwell 
Within these over stately heaps of stone. 
Which doting sires in old age did erect." 

Duly impressed as he no doubt was by 
these "over stately heaps of stone," the par- 
ticular "butcher's son" with whom these 
pages are concerned probably found as much 
to interest him in the three thousand students 
among whom the next seven years of his life 

160 



CAMBRIDGE 

were to be spent. If he could have glanced 
forward some fifty years in the history of Eng- 
land, his interest in the youths who thronged 
the streets of Cambridge two hundred and 
eighty years ago would have been deepened. 
In that far-distant year, as Mr. J. B. Mullinger 
has pointed out, "we may mark not a few, in 
the humble garb of a studious undergraduate- 
ship, destined to leave to their countrymen a 
bright example, and to win a deathless fame. 
We see Milton, with his maiden face, hardly 
on the best terms with the authorities of 
Christ's, but already gaining credit by his 
exercises and epigrams; Fuller, the future 
Church historian, the quaint humorist, to 
whom is reserved the task of chronicling with 
filial affection the history of his own Alma 
Mater; Henry More, the Platonist, a 'tall 
thin youth, of clear olive complexion and a 
wrapt expression'; Seth Ward, my future lord 
bishop, his flaxen hair and boyish stature win- 
ning, sadly to his discomfiture, the attention 
of grave seniors whenever he ventures beyond 
the walls of Sidney; Cleveland, the satirist, 
11 161 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

and Crawshaw, the sweet lyric poet, both al- 
ready giving promise of their future powers; 
Pearson, the interpreter of the faith to many 
a succeeding generation; Cudworth, destined 
to a foremost place in philosophic thought; 
Mede, now a senior fellow at Christ's, deep 
in astrology and Apocalyptic studies; Jeremy 
Taylor, just elected to his fellowship at Caius; 
all these might probably have been met on the 
same day in the streets of Cambridge." 

Had Milton been a member of Harvard's 
college, it would have been natural to postu- 
late an acquaintance between the two men. 
But he was not. As, however, Harvard and 
the poet were contemporaries for nearly five 
years, it is not unreasonable to imagine that 
they were at least known to each other by 
sight. Indeed, we may go further than that. 
Even while a student, Milton gave unmis- 
takable proofs of his Puritan tendencies, and 
the fact that Emmanuel College was the rec- 
ognised home of Puritanism may well have 
led him to take a greater interest in its students 
than those of any other college. Hence it is 

162 



CAMBRIDGE 

not unlikely that he was often a guest at 
Emmanuel on special occasions. When, too, 
any unusual function was held at Milton's own 
college, it was customary for students from 
other houses to attend, and in that way Har- 
vard may have heard Milton deliver his famous 
"Vacation Exercise" in 1628. Apart, how- 
ever, from all these considerations, Milton's 
fame as a student, and his striking personal 
appearance, which earned for him the nick- 
name of "the Lady," all point to his being a 
conspicuous figure in those days, and Harvard, 
we may be sure, would often gaze upon the 
face even if he never made the personal ac- 
quaintance of the poet of Puritanism. 

Emmanuel College was such a law unto 
itself in most matters that it is hazardous to 
conclude that such manners and customs as 
obtained in other colleges were also observed 
within its walls. That being the case, per- 
haps John Harvard was not called upon to 
go through the ordeal of "salting," which 
seems to have been common in Cambridge 
in those days. This was a mock ceremony 

163 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

of initiation through which most freshmen 
had to pass, and was conducted in the com- 
mon hall by the senior members of the college. 
Each new-comer was called upon to make a 
brief speech, and his subsequent treatment 
depended upon the amount of humour he was 
able to impart to his remarks. If he were 
successful in moving his audience to laughter, 
he was rewarded with copious libations of 
sack or beer; if he failed, he was required to 
swallow a formidable draught of salt and 
water. The next item on the programme 
consisted of the operation of "tucking," that 
is, the making of such an incision in the lip or 
chin as would cause the blood to flow. And 
finally each freshman had to take an oath, to 
which he was sworn by kissing an old shoe. 
Truly, "There are our young barbarians, all 
at play!" 

For several years before leaving London, 
John Harvard had probably been able to call 
one room in his home his own, but no such 
luxury was in store for him at Emmanuel 
College. While at this period most of the 

164. 



CAMBRIDGE 

colleges were overcrowded, Emmanuel was 
specially so. It was the youngest save one 
of all the foundations, and its accommodation 
was quite inadequate to the growing demands 
made upon it. Instead, then, of having a 
room to himself, Harvard would certainly 
share the apartment with one fellow student, 
and it may be with two or even three. For 
that divided accommodation he would have 
to pay any sum per annum between two 
shillings and ten shillings, according to the 
position of his room. Whilst he was still at 
college, however, the rents were raised to ten 
shillings for the cheapest, and twenty- six shil- 
lings for the dearest respectively. 

Another matter which caused the young 
student anxious thought at the outset of his 
career was the matter of dress. All through 
this period the university authorities and the 
students were constantly at variance on the 
subject of clothing. Even James I. bent his 
royal mind to such small details, for one of 
his directions inculcated the duty of wearing 
" scholastical habit"; and a statute of the 

165 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

university imposed a fine upon any student 
possessing a degree who did not wear "a 
gown reaching down to his ankles and a hood 
befitting his degree, or at least having a sacer- 
dotal distinction." In spite of these, and nu- 
merous kindred regulations, the students of 
Harvard's time continued to be a law unto 
themselves in the matter of dress. That agent 
of Laud who penned the report already quoted, 
gave this picture of the sartorial sins of the 
Cambridge students: "Their other garments 
are light and gay, some with boots and spurs, 
others with stockings of diverse colours re- 
versed one upon another, and round rusty 
caps they wear (if they wear any at all) that 
they may be the sooner despised, though the 
fashion here of old time was altogether Pileus 
quadratus, as appears by retaining that cus- 
tom and order still in King's College, in 
Trinity and at Caius, whose governors here- 
tofore were more observant of old orders than 
it seems others were. But in all places among 
the graduates, and priests also, as well as the 
younger students, we have fair roses upon the 

166 



CAMBRIDGE 

shoe, long frizzled hair upon the head, broad- 
spread bands upon the shoulders, and long, 
large merchants' ruffs about the neck, with 
fair feminine cuffs at the wrist." Perhaps 
some of the gaily- bedecked youths who helped 
to suggest this picture may have hailed from 
the "house of pure Emmanuel," for not all 
its students were of the stern Puritan cast; 
yet, somehow, the imagination refuses to de- 
pict John Harvard as garbed otherwise than 
in the long gown and square cap affected by 
those students who were amenable to the rules 
of the university. In time, some of the Puri- 
tans grew to despise the gown as much as the 
surplice. A satirist of the century represents 
a Puritan as preaching in these terms: "We 
read that honest Paul left his cloak at Troas: 
Why, Sirs, you see plainly from this text, that 
Paul had not a gown but a cloak, for says the 
text, he left his cloak, it does not say that he 
left his gown, never a gown had that precious 
man to leave, beloved, and therefore you may 
be sure he was no prelate." Inasmuch, how- 
ever, as Laud's spy had nothing to say about 

167 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

the dress of Emmanuel students, we may be 
certain that in this matter at least they con- 
formed to the regulations of the university. 

Than in the seventeenth century, probably 
there never had been a time when "high 
thinking and low living" were so rigidly the 
rule at Cambridge. Practically, the students 
were restricted to two meals a day: dinner 
and supper. The first was served at eleven 
o'clock in Emmanuel College, and the second 
at six in the evening. Considering that the 
college day lasted from five o'clock in the 
morning until ten o'clock at night, seventeen 
hours in all, two meals a day cannot be said 
to have erred on the side of repletion, much 
less luxury. In the previous century, dinner, 
which was served an hour earlier, consisted 
of a "penny piece of beef among four, having 
a few porage made of the broth of the same 
beef, with salt and oatmeal and nothing else." 
For supper, the Spartan students of those 
times "had not much better than their din- 
ner." The dietry had improved somewhat by 
John Harvard's days, but even then the daily 

168 



CAMBRIDGE 

menu had few variations. The changes were 
rung incessantly on roast or boiled meat, with 
an occasional pudding. Of vegetables no 
mention is made. The hungry student could, 
however, resort to the buttery between eight 
to eight- thirty in the morning, or between 
seven and eight o'clock in the evening, and 
there regale himself with a "halfpenny loaf 
and butter or cheese," and a "farthing- 
worth of samm-beer." No wonder we find 
students imploring their mothers to send 
them "a cake and a cheese" or "a pound or 
two of almonds and raisons." 

At St. Saviour's grammar-school, John 
Harvard had been accustomed, as we have 
seen, to begin his day's lessons at six o'clock 
in the morning during the summer months 
and an hour later in the winter, but at Cam- 
bridge he was roused at five o'clock every 
morning by the ringing of the bell which 
called all the students to chapel for morning 
prayers. On some occasions those early de- 
votions were prolonged by a short address 
from one of the fellows of the college. After 

169 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

a flying visit to the buttery for a morning 
draught, the serious work of the day began, 
the morning hours being divided between 
attendance on the college lectures, the lec- 
tures of the university professors, and the 
disputations of such students as were pre- 
paring for their degrees. Dinner over, there 
were declamations and more disputations to 
hear; after supper came evening chapel, and 
at eight o'clock each student was required to 
attend prayers with his own particular tutor. 
At ten o'clock the college bell was rung and 
the gates were shut for the night. In this 
programme of incessant piety and tuition, room 
could only be found for a couple of hours in 
which the student was free to indulge his own 
inclinations, and even those two precious hours 
were liable to be encroached upon by some 
"public exercise of learning or religion." 

So far as official approval went, the only 
recreations in which the students could in- 
dulge were quoits, football, archery, bowling, 
shovel-board, and chess. It has been seen 
that such sports as coursing, hunting, and 

170 



CAMBRIDGE 

bull- and bear-baiting were specially for- 
bidden, and a similar prohibition was in force 
against "common plays, public shows, inter- 
ludes, comedies and tragedies in the English 
tongue, and games at loggetts and ninepins." 
Plays in Latin, however, did not come within 
the forbidden degree, and on special occasions 
such amusement was largely resorted to. For 
the rest, the student to whom the recognised 
recreations did not appeal, often followed his 
own bent in defiance of the authorities, and 
was duly punished when found out; while 
others sought amusement in music or some 
equally innocent occupation for leisure hours. 
Several of John Harvard's fellow students, 
such as Worthington and Sancroft, were skil- 
ful players and excellent singers, and we may 
hope that he was sometimes invited to their 
rooms for a musical evening. 

Those students who aspired to the degree 
of Master of Arts were required to spend 
seven years at the university, that period 
being divided into the Quadriennium, or four 
years of undergraduateship, and the Trien- 

171 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

nium, or three years of bachelorship. The 
Quadriennium consisted of eleven full terms, 
and the Triennium of nine more, the terms 
of each year being those of Michaelmas, Lent, 
and Easter. During the first period the 
course of study included rhetoric, logic, phil- 
osophy, Greek, and geometry; the second 
period embraced public lectures in philosophy, 
astronomy, perspective, and Greek. When 
the student entered upon the last year of his 
Quadriennium he was expected to take part 
in the public debates in school and chapel. 
Those debates, in which subtle moral or meta- 
physical questions were keenly discussed, fur- 
nished an important element in the intellectual 
training of the seventeenth century, and were 
no doubt responsible for the interminable ar- 
guments which characterise the theological 
literature of the period. With the exception 
of theology, Mr. J. B. Mullinger remarks, 
"logic was undoubtedly the study which at 
this period engrossed the largest amount of 
attention, forming in conjunction with rhetoric 
the chief element of the ordinary academic 

172 



A 

RETECTION, 

OR DISCOVERIE 

OF A FALSE DE- 
TECTION: 

Containing a true defence oftvvobookes, 

intituleJj Synofff Papifm/,ind TetrniiyloK Pa- 

piJlicum.io^ciUcr wi:h the author ot thcm,auainft 

daitrs jTctcnded vr}truihs,co/!ti\;diuiO/!s,f,ilji- 

Jications ofjutlwrs,coini\ztoniof'Scrip- 

ture, oh\z&.<:d againll ilic faid 

bookcs inacerraine Libcll . ^ 

la tcly publiflaed. j^y- j. Zjujmi hUXU^J^'- 

Wherein the vninfi' accupitioyjs of the Libeller, his 

fophifiicall cauils,a»d vrch.trittible fliiHn-^ 

ders are dtjplayed. 

IoB.5r.j<, 

Though mine adiicrlaric fliotil.^ write a booke againit 
ircjwould not I take it vpon my llvju!d«:T,and biiidc n a$ a 
crowncvntomc? 

/tu^ufime cofit.Vetilian lib. j i.7(on ago vt efjidar homhii 
con.'titiin(ioJ:<periar,fedcnuiem conmnctndo fMubitor : I go 
not about to be lupcnor vmo him in rai!ing,but louodci ai 
refutinghis error. 

AT LONDON 

Printed by F e m x K y n g s t o n, for 

7 homoi Aian. 1 6 o j . 






-_iiJ^S 



BOOK INSCRIBED WITH JOHN HARVARD'S NAME, IN THE POSSESSION 
OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. — Pa^/e 173. 



CAMBRIDGE 

culture." The same excellent authority adds: 
" But theology was at once the chief study and 
the arena to which those who contended for 
intellectual distinction, for popularity, and for 
the prizes of high office and social influence, 
found themselves, with but few exceptions, 
irresistibly attracted. And while thus ab- 
sorbing to itself the best brain-power of the 
age, the study was at the same time con- 
ceived in a more and more narrow, intolerant 
spirit; and round the new standards of belief 
and the oracles of Protestantism, the contro- 
versial clamour began again to rise as loudly 
as of yore." Such, then, with some attention 
devoted to Hebrew, were the intellectual con- 
ditions amid which John Harvard passed the 
seven years of his university career. 

Between 1627 and 1635 few notable events 
happened at Cambridge to disturb the course 
of his studies. Yet he can hardly have 
failed to witness the incidents associated with 
the visit of the Chancellor, Lord Holland, 
in 1629, and the visit of Charles I. in 1632. 
The former took place in the month of Sep- 

173 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

tember, and was rendered noteworthy by the 
presence of the French Ambassador and the 
famous artist, Rubens, upon whom Harvard 
must have witnessed the conferring of the 
honorary degree of M.A. On this occasion 
the comedy selected for presentation was the 
notorious Fraus Honesta, and it is not im- 
probable that Harvard helped Milton to hiss 
at that portentous conglomeration of rubbish. 
Greater ceremony naturally accompanied 
the visit of Charles and his queen in March, 
1632. Elaborate preparations were made for 
that occasion, and perhaps Harvard took his 
place among the students who were ordered 
to line the streets and voice their welcome in 
Latin cheers. One of the regulations speci- 
ally drafted in view of this event deserves quo- 
tation for the light it throws on the manners 
of the times: "That no tobacco be taken in 
the hall nor anywhere else publicly, and that 
neither at their standing in the streets, nor 
before the comedy begins, nor all the time 
there, any rude or immodest exclamation be 
made; nor any humming, hawking, whist- 

174 



CAMBRIDGE 

ling, hissing, or laughing be used, or any 
stamping or knocking, nor any such other 
uncivil or unscholarlike or boyish demeanour, 
upon any occasion; nor that any clapping of 
hands be had until the 'Plaudite' at the end 
of the comedy, except his Majesty, the Queen, 
or others of the best quality here do apparently 
begin the same." There are no reasons for 
thinking that "pure Emmanuel" held itself 
aloof from the festivities of this royal visit; 
on the contrary, the probabilities are against 
such a conclusion; but no doubt some of its 
students derived little enjoyment from the 
occasion. Simon D'Ewes journeyed speci- 
ally to Cambridge in order to be present, but 
he soon regretted his decision. "Whilst," he 
wrote, "they were at an idle play, that gave 
much offence to most of the hearers, I went 
into Trinity College library, and there viewed 
divers ancient manuscripts, which afforded 
me as much content as the sight of the extreme 
vanity of the Court did sorrow." It is not 
unlikely that Harvard was one of those to 
whom the comedies, for there were two, gave 

175 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

"much offence," and it is probable that he 
shared the reflections of D'Ewes as a whole. 

It has already been noted that attendance at 
the ad clerum sermons in St. Mary's Church 
on Sunday was compulsory on all the students ; 
absentees, indeed, were fined sixpence for each 
offence; and consequently our young student 
may be imagined as coming pretty regularly 
under the influence of the lengthy and often 
controversial discourses which were delivered 
week by week from that pulpit. No distinc- 
tion was "more highly prized than that of 
being appointed university preacher and thus, 
in a manner, being called upon to instruct the 
future instructors of the nation." As in Har- 
vard's time, however, little restriction seems to 
have been placed upon the kind of doctrine in- 
culcated in the ad clerum sermons, those dis- 
courses must often have been of a type which 
would have pleased Laud himself. In a letter 
which was written from Cambridge at this 
time it is stated that the master of one college 
openly maintained transubstantiation and 
many points of Popery; that another upheld 

176 



CAMBRIDGE 

such matters in public disputations; that in a 
third college there were prayers for the dead 
and to the Virgin Mary; and that in Peter- 
house chapel an altar adorned with numerous 
crosses had been set up. Further, even a Vice- 
Chancellor was reported as warning the stu- 
dents to take heed of becoming Puritans. 
"What," he asked, "can you get in that way? 
You shall live poorly, perhaps you may get 
some three- halfpenny benefice in following 
them; but come to be children of the Church, 
and then you may be sure of good bene- 
fices, you may come to be prebends, to be 
deans, to be bishops." But neither confusion 
of counsel, nor appeals to personal interests, 
availed to turn John Harvard from the Puritan 
faith. 

In Emmanuel College he was surrounded 
by influences which might be relied upon to 
strengthen him against the most eloquent ex- 
position of Laudism, or the most tempting bait 
which the exalted oflSces of the Church of Eng- 
land could dangle before his eyes; whether, 

however, those influences were altogether on 
12 177 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

the side of the narrowest interpretation of Puri- 
tanism may be doubted. 

Dating from the election of John Preston to 
the mastership of the college, a change in the 
direction of a more liberal theology gradually 
manifested itself among the leading spirits of 
Emmanuel. Probably this change did not 
owe much to the influence of Preston himself, 
for, in agreement with the terms on which he 
accepted the position, he was often absent 
from Cambridge, pursuing that will o' the wisp 
of fortune which he was never able to overtake. 
But his election to the mastership was in itself 
indicative of the change mentioned above. 
The majority of the fellows had grown weary 
of the reputation their college had obtained for 
singularity, or, rather, they saw no reason why 
they should not make the best of both religi- 
ous parties. It was known that the Duke of 
Buckingham was at this juncture inclined 
to be friendly towards the Puritans, and as 
Preston was in the good graces of the king's 
favourite, Chaderton was influenced to resign 
in order that Preston might assume his place 

178 




lohn Pre^iori 'D^' in diunuW Liuviuh' in 

Colic -(J^cMH C'cUiibjidoc dUj'jjUlClinkV 
vrjd:h:r JtLmcolncs Line. 



DR. JOHN PRESTON, MASTER OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE. — Prt.;* 178. 



^ 



CAMBRIDGE 

and forward the interests of the college at 
Court. 

According to all contemporary accounts, 
Preston was a man of conspicuous ability. 
He had been eminently successful as a tutor — 
Fuller styles him the "greatest pupil- monger 
in England" — and it was while he was at the 
height of his career in that capacity that a ser- 
mon preached by John Cotton effected his con- 
version. Thenceforward his own preaching 
was to be counted among the forces of Puri- 
tanism. In spite, however, of his conversion, 
it may be questioned whether he was less set 
than before upon attaining high rank in State 
affairs rather than in the Church. Of course 
his election to the mastership of Emmanuel 
was all to the good of the College on the score 
of increased numbers ; he is said to have taken 
all his pupils, among whom was one named 
Chambers, with him, and when doubt was ex- 
pressed where they would find lodging in the 
already overcrowded college, the answer was 
made," Oh ! Master Preston will carry Cham- 
bers with him.'* In other respects, however, 

179 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

the most probable outcome of his mastership 
was to diffuse an atmosphere of expediency 
throughout the college. 

Although, then, the Puritanism of John 
Harvard probably owed little to the influence 
of Preston, who died in less than a year after 
he became a student, he could hardly fail to be 
impressed by the resolute teaching of Anthony 
Tuckney, who was at this time the most influ- 
ential fellow and tutor in the college. Har- 
vard, indeed, may well have enrolled himself 
among the pupils of Tuckney, and, on his re- 
moval to Boston in 1629, been transferred with 
his other scholars to the tuition of Thomas Hill, 
who was an equally staunch upholder of Cal- 
vinism. Tuckney, it may be noted in passing, 
had previously acted as private chaplain in the 
household of Theophilus Clinton, fourth Earl 
of Lincoln, a peer whose interest in New Eng- 
land is well known. In that fact perhaps we 
may have a clue to Harvard's final decision to 
seek a home in the New World. What, how- 
ever, does not admit of doubt is that Tuckney's 
influence on the young student was wholly on 

180 







' r 



/// . LA'TOA 

'lllllllliii Ill 

DR. AM'IIOINY TL'CKXEY, TUTOR OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE. — Pai/e 180, 



ItmT'WHmiiiimiimiimwHiwnniitiwmiM'nmmtnMf'' 



CAMBRIDGE 

the side of Puritanism. Never for a moment 
did he waver in his allegiance to that cause; 
although he appears to have been a man of at- 
tractive personal character, he effectually pre- 
vented that charm from showing itself in his 
creed. Any preaching which appeared to 
favour philosophers and other heathen being 
" made fairer candidates for heaven than the 
Scriptures seem to allow" distressed him ex- 
ceedingly ; to Arminianism in every shape and 
form he maintained an unqualified opposition. 
While, however, the influence of Harvard's 
tutor might be counted upon to keep him 
sound in the tenets of Calvin, it is conceivable 
that other phases of doctrine would emerge in 
his discussions with his fellow students. With- 
out implying any reflection upon the many 
able men who have since been numbered 
among its graduates, it may be questioned 
whether Emmanuel College has ever possessed 
at one period so notable a group of students as 
those who were the contemporaries of John 
Harvard. At the outset of his career he found 
himself among not a few of those who were to 

181 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

take a conspicuous place in the political and 
religious affairs of England during the trying 
days of the Civil War and the Commonwealth. 
Two future members of Parliament were there 
in the persons of Henry and William Pierre- 
pont, who had both entered the college three 
years before Harvard. The younger, William, 
was to attain a position of considerable influ- 
ence and popularity in the Puritan camp; he 
was, in the testimony of one chronicler, "one 
of the wisest counsellors and most excellent 
speakers"; and, selected as a commissioner to 
treat with Charles in 1642, he discharged his 
duties with "deep foresight and prudence." 
Puritan though he was, he did not homologate 
all the actions of his party. Again and again 
he used his influence in favour of treating with 
the king, and marked his disapproval of the 
final catastrophe by generally holding himself 
aloof from politics during Cromwell's regime. 
In short, his career as a whole fully justified his 
epithet of "Wise William." 

Wisdom, however, does not appear to have 
been a conspicuous trait in the character of his 

182 



CAMBRIDGE 

brother Henry, with whom Harvard would also 
be acquainted. Although he did not actually 
fight for Charles, he busied himself to such an 
extent in raising forces for the royal army that 
he was mulct in as heavy a fine as though he 
had really borne arms against the Parliament, 
and the fact that the king created him Marquis 
of Dorchester can hardly have proved adequate 
compensation for his monetary losses. To a 
studious temperament which would keep him 
at his books ten or twelve hours a day, Henry 
Pierrepont added a violent temper which in- 
volved him in frequent unscholarly disputes. 
On one occasion he assaulted a man in West- 
minster Abbey during divine service; and 
later in life, after he had become notorious as 
an amateur dabbler in medicine, he sent a 
furious challenge to Lord Roos with the mes- 
sage, " You dare not meet me with a sword in 
your hand, but was it a bottle none would 
be more forward." Lord Roos, however, was 
quite the equal of his challenger with his pen: 
"If," he retorted, "by your threatening to ram 
your sword down my throat, you do not mean 

183 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

your pills, the worst is past and I am safe 
enough." 

While Henry Pierrepont represented the 
royal standpoint, and William Pierrepont the 
attitude of the independent Puritans, there 
were not lacking among Harvard's early fellow 
students examples of those who were faithful 
throughout to the Parliament and to Crom- 
well. Two of these, Lazarus Seaman and 
William Spurstowe, were to become members 
of the famous Westminister Assembly of Di- 
vines, and were also chosen among the clerical 
commissioners who were sent to confer with 
Charles I. in the Isle of Wight in 1648. By 
his conduct on that occasion Seaman earned 
the commendation of the king for the ability 
he had shown, a compliment in which his col- 
lege companion, Spurstowe, was hardly likely 
to participate, seeing that he roundly told the 
captive monarch that " if he did not consent to 
the total abolishing of episcopacy, he would be 
damn'd." Seaman is described as a man of 
much learning, a testimony which is supported 
by the fact that he left a library of some five 

184 



CAMBRIDGE 

thousand volumes, which, by the way, was the 
first Hbrary sold in England by auction. It is 
not improbable that Harvard profited by Sea- 
man's advice in making his own collection of 
books, for Seaman was settled in London at the 
time Harvard was preparing to sail for New 
England. 

Among the other students already in resi- 
dence at Emmanuel were two who eventually 
made a wide deviation from the Puritan faith. 
One of these, William Dell, after acting as 
secretary to Laud for a time, abandoned the 
tenets of the Church of England and became a 
pronounced Antinomian. He is said to have 
offered his ministerial services to Charles I. on 
the scaffold at Whitehall. The other, Benja- 
min Whichcot, was to take a leading position 
among those notable scholars who are known 
as the Platonic or philosophical divines of 
Cambridge. 

Even as a student, Whichcot gave unmis- 
takable signs of the liberal spirit which charac- 
terised his subsequent theological position, and 
it is pleasant to reflect that for seven years John 

185 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Harvard was in daily intercourse with a man 
whose whole life was a conflict with the hard 
fanaticism of the times. It could not have 
been other than profitable for him to enjoy the 
friendship of one who was always intent upon 
learning because he realised that no man can 
grow wiser without some change in his mind; 
and who ruled his conduct with the reflection, 
"If I provoke a man, he is the worse for my 
company ; and if I suffer myself to be provoked 
by him, I shall be the worse for his." Which- 
cot, indeed, was one of those rare men who 
have the misfortune to be born before their 
time. In an age when the use of human rea- 
son was denounced as evidence of an unregen- 
erate heart, he unflinchingly declared that " a 
man has as much right to use his own under- 
standing in judging of truth as he has a right 
to use his eyes to see his way"; and on the 
uncharitableness of his time he retorted 
that "he that never changed his opinions 
never corrected any of his mistakes; and 
he who was never wise enough to find 
out any mistakes in himself will not be 

186 



CAMBRIDGE 

charitable enough to excuse what he reckons 
mistakes in others." It is startling to find 
a man who lived in such an age arriving at 
the conclusion that heaven and hell are really 
states of mind, and well indeed was it for 
Whichcot that he did not emulate the example 
of Harvard in emigrating to the New World. 
At the best, his only fate, in his lifetime, would 
have been to share the wanderings of Roger 
Williams; and, when he was dead, he would 
have been embalmed by the industrious Cotton 
Mather as another horrible example of the " af- 
flictive disturbances" from which the churches 
of New England were so mercifully preserved. 

On the death of Preston in 1628, William 
Sandcroft became the master of Emmanuel 
College, and under his influence the liberal 
tendency which has been noted above gained 
considerable force. Indeed, with rare excep- 
tions, the students who came to join Harvard 
subsequent to 1628 were in the main typical of 
a revolt against the more narrow tenets of Puri- 
tanism. Peter Sterry, who became preacher to 
the Council of State, was notorious even as a 

187 



JOHN HARVARD AWD HIS TIMES 

student for his Platonic leanings, which, among 
other things, were manifested in his keen ap- 
preciation of music, poetry, and art. On the 
other hand, in the persons of John Wallis 
and Jeremiah Horrox, both of whom entered 
the same year. Harvard made the acquain- 
tance of men who were notable precursors 
of the scientific spirit. Wallis became enam- 
oured of mathematics, the study of which con- 
tributed not a little to his success in after life. 
When chaplain in a nobleman's house, and 
while at supper one evening, a letter in cipher 
arrived with news of the capture of Chichester. 
Wallis retired to his study with the document, 
and in two hours, without the aid of any key, 
he had deciphered its contents. In the mas- 
tery of mathematics, indeed, he is generally 
held to have been the greatest of Newton's 
forerunners. Akin to Wallis in this matter 
was Jeremiah Horrox, his fellow student, 
whom Newton himself described as " a genius 
of the very first rank." Although only four- 
teen years old when he entered Emmanuel, he 
soon became attracted to the study of astron- 

188 




JOII-X WALLIS, A FKLLOW STUDENT OF Juli.s HAiiVAED. ~i'»r/,- ibS. 



CAMBRIDGE 

omy, and ere his short life of twenty- two years 
had ended he had placed to his credit several 
unparalleled discoveries in astronomy. "It 
seemed to me," wrote this wonderful youth, 
" that nothing could be more noble than to con- 
template the manifold wisdom of my Creator, 
as displayed amidst such glorious works; noth- 
ing more delightful than to view them no longer 
with the gaze of vulgar admiration, but with a 
desire to know their causes, and to feed upon 
their beauties by a more careful examination 
of their mechanism." 

Perhaps, however, the broadening spirit of 
the times was most notably represented in 
John Worthington and Ralph Cudworth, with 
whom John Harvard enjoyed a three years' 
acquaintance. Although the first- named 
has not left any considerable record of his 
attainments in the form of published books, 
his diary is conclusive evidence that his ac- 
quirements were notable even in an age 
conspicuous for its learning; and for the 
rest it is truthfully noted of Worthington that 
"from the mildness, the moderation, and 

189 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

charity, which he invariably displayed in 
every situation in which he was placed, and 
the unrelaxing energy with which he for- 
warded every advancement of knowledge and 
every work of love, he seems universally to 
have conciliated the reverence and esteem of 
his contemporaries.'* On the other hand, 
Cudworth was destined to leave an enduring 
mark on the philosophic thought of the world 
by his monumental "Intellectual System of 
the Universe," and his weighty influence was 
ever to be counted upon in any protest against 
the exaggerated importance which Puritans at- 
tached to dogmatic differences. The fact that 
Cudworth, in his best-known work, manifests 
a spirit of independence of authority provides 
an interesting clue to his character as a student 
at the time when Harvard knew him. 

Two more of the students of this time need 
to be mentioned, of whom the first, William 
Sancroft, is interesting for the contrast he 
presents to the majority of Emmanuel scholars. 
His path in life was to lead him eventually to 
the archbishopric of Canterbury, and to lead 

190 




OR. RALPH CUDWORTH, A FELLOW STUDENT OF JOHN HARVARD. -Pa^e 190. 



CAMBRIDGE 

him thither by a consistent development of 
the principles he held while a youth at college. 
With Puritanism, even in its most inoffensive 
form, he had no sympathy whatever; he de- 
scribed the adherents of that faith as "that 
sour sect who sought to bereave us of one 
half of our nature"; and to him the beheading 
of Charles was that "black act, which all the 
world wonders at, and which an age cannot 
expiate." He is, indeed, usually credited with 
being the author of a book which was a vig- 
orous attack on Calvinism on the plea that it 
was subversive of all morality. To Sancroft, 
Emmanuel must have been little better than 
a desert solitude, but his very presence in the 
college would make Harvard acquainted with 
the spirit which was to attain its triumph at 
the Restoration. 

In the person of John Sadler, however. 
Harvard seems to have found a companion 
greatly to his liking. That his Puritanism 
was no uncertain quantity is obvious from 
the fact that he held numerous offices under 
the Commonwealth, and was regarded with 

191 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

much esteem by Cromwell, who offered him 
the lucrative position of Chief Justice of 
Munster. Although he followed the law as 
a profession, he devoted much attention to 
Hebrew and other oriental languages, and 
generally seems to have experienced a fasci- 
nation for all kinds of curiosities and oddities 
of learning. That side of his character is 
best represented by his "Olbia," which has 
been described as "one of the strangest of 
strange books, the object of which, so far as 
so incoherent a performance can be said to 
have any object, appears to be, to prove, by a 
variety of calculations of the prophetical peri- 
ods, that the year 1666 was to be the most 
eventful year since the appearance of our 
Saviour." One brief extract from this sing- 
ular volume will serve to indicate its character : 
"There was more hope, and comfort, in a 
woman's shaving than a man's. For, if her 
lord, bid her shave off her hair; it might be 
a sign, he meant to marry her. For, so the 
law was: if thou leadest captivity captive, 
(as Christ hath done) and see a woman, that 

192 




z> / ^ M t 

ire I I ie/.' IS coy us (('ii^M^^ 
^o tilts ^/l/iaka 

iCUBlSllUl' b.V.NCKOIT, A FELLOW SlLUKNT OF JOHN HARVARD. - P«ire 192. 



CAMBRIDGE 

thou lovest; she shall shave her head, and 
pair her nails: or goatishness, sipharnea. 
We saw it in Saphira: the goat: as also seir, 
is hair, and a goat." 

According to a narrative which is set forth 
in great detail by the credulous Cotton Mather 
in his "Magnalia," Sadler foretold the great 
fire of London three years before it happened, 
and also prophesied many other wonderful 
events which are now somewhat overdue. 
Apart from these vagaries, which not un- 
naturally earned for him the reputation of 
being a bit of a lunatic, it should be placed 
to Sadler's credit that it was through his in- 
fluence the Jews first obtained permission to 
build a synagogue in London. He was also 
sane enough to reach the conclusion that, 
however painful it might be to send Charles 
to the scaffold, "his life could not consist 
with the people's peace and safety, which I 
may acknowledge the supreme and highest 
law humane." 

What exactly may have been the special 

aflfinity between Harvard and Sadler there 
13 193 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

are no means of deciding with certainty, but 
that a close friendship existed between the 
two is obvious from the fact that Sadler's 
sister was to figure largely in Harvard's life. 
Mr. Sadler's father, the Rev. John Sadler, 
was vicar of Ringmer, a pleasant Sussex vil- 
lage in the vicinity of Lewes, and thither, 
without doubt, John Harvard was invited by 
his fellow student to spend at least part of 
his Long Vacation. In the vicarage there he 
made the acquaintance of his friend's sister, 
Ann Sadler, who was to accompany him to 
New England as his wife. 

Amid the influences which have been indi- 
cated in the foregoing pages, and in daily 
intercourse with some of the most notable 
students of the university, Harvard's seven 
years at Cambridge wore away. In July 
1635 he secured his degree of M.A., and 
adhibited his signature for the last time to 
the Three Articles of Religion. But his last 
impressions of Cambridge were probably min- 
gled with sad reflections as to the future of 
religion in that seat of learning. It so hap- 

194 



CAMBRIDGE 

pened that Simon D'Ewes, who has already 
been referred to more than once in this chapter, 
was present at the Commencement at which 
John Harvard took his final degree, and a 
page in his diary enables us to participate in 
one of the incidents of that day. "I de- 
parted," he wrote, "early on Monday, 16th 
day of July, to Cambridge, for the Commence- 
ment, where the next day one Nevel, a young 
impudent scholar, being a fellow of Pem- 
broke Hall, and answering the Bachelor of 
Divinity's act in the morning, maintained 
openly justification by works, and that the 
very outward act of baptism took away sin. 
His brazen-faced assertion of these Popish 
points, especially the denying of justification 
by faith, was abhorred by myself and all the 
orthodox hearers in the Commencement House ; 
and Dr. Ward, the Lady Margaret's Pro- 
fessor, and Master of Sidney College, sitting 
moderator the same day, openly rebuked the 
same Nevel for broaching those gross heresies, 
contrary not only to the canonical Scriptures, 
to the articles and homilies of our Church, 

195 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

but to the tenets and writings also of all our 
Protestant divines, as well Lutheran as Cal- 
vinistic. I supped at night at Sidney College, 
with the same Dr. Ward, where we both la- 
mented the times that this wicked Nevel durst 
so impudently and openly maintain the vilest 
and most feculent points of all Popery." 

With such a daring attack on Luther and 
Calvin ringing in his ears, Harvard took a last 
farewell of his university. On the journey to 
his home in Southwark he would have ample 
time to reflect on the years that were gone and 
his projects for the years which were to come. 
Already many of his predecessors at Emman- 
uel, including John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, 
Thomas Shepard, and Samuel Stone, had 
sailed away to the New World in quest of that 
religious liberty which was denied them in 
their native land ; and it may be that the voice 
of this "wicked Nevel," raised in defence of 
principles dear to the heart of Laud, warned 
John Harvard that his path, too, lay across the 
waves of the Atlantic. 



196 



VI 
LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 



ii^iMi 



CHAPTER VI 
LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

HAD all been well in his Southwark 
home, John Harvard would have 
joyfully welcomed the day of his re- 
turn thither. For seven years he had been 
severed from that affectionate mother whose 
companionship had been his constant happi- 
ness from his birth to his twentieth year. No 
doubt his character had undergone consider- 
able change during his residence at Cambridge, 
but that his absence from home had lessened 
his love for his parent is beyond belief. On 
the contrary, it is not unreasonable to think it 
had increased its strength. 

Whatever, too, may have been his reflec- 
tions concerning the future of Puritanism at 
Cambridge and in his native land, John Har- 
vard, as he looked back on his university ca- 
reer, can have had no cause for self-reproach. 
That his personal conduct had been free from 

199 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

blame, is demonstrated by the absence of his 
name from the "admonitions" which, among 
the records of Emmanuel College, perpetuate 
the various delinquencies of some of his fellow 
students ; and that he had devoted himself per- 
sistently and successfully to his studies is ob- 
vious from his having taken the B.A. and 
M.A. degrees in the minimum time in which 
they could be secured. Hence, now that his 
face was turned towards home once more, he 
had good cause, if ever student had, for being 
satisfied with his own achievements, and an- 
ticipating a few months' happy intercourse 
with his mother ere addressing himself to the 
serious work of life. 

But no such happiness was in store for John 
Harvard. It was to a darkened home he re- 
turned. His mother was dead. Whether 
he was by her side when she passed away is 
doubtful. Her final illness appears to have 
taken a rapid course, for only seven days after 
she had signed her will she was buried in St. 
Saviour's Church. With such a brief illness, 
it may easily have happened that Harvard 

200 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

heard of his mother's sickness and death at the 
same time. In 1635 the postal system of Eng- 
land was in a crude condition; to many dis- 
tricts letters were delivered only once a week; 
while even in the most favoured towns the mails 
were received and despatched only on alternate 
days. Further, as the illness of Harvard's 
mother coincided with the busy preparations 
for Commencement at Cambridge, when her 
son was to take his final degree, it is probable 
that she herself would oppose, until it was too 
late, any suggestion for his return home. Al- 
together, then, the conclusion is inevitable that 
of her two surviving children only one, Thomas 
Harvard, was by her side when Katherine 
Yearwood closed her eyes in death. For John 
Harvard there remained only the sad satisfac- 
tion of visiting her grave in that church where he 
had been baptized and had so often sat by her 
side in the happy Sundays of his boyhood. 

Although he was not by her side when she 
gave instructions for her will on July 2nd, 
1635, the fact that John Harvard had the first 
place in that document indicates that he was 

201 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

uppermost in his mother's thoughts. After 
commending her soul " into the merciful hands 
of my dear Redeemer," she said, "I give to my 
eldest son, John Harvard, clerk, all that my 
messuage, tenement, or inn, commonly called 
or known by the name of the Queen's Head, 
in the borough of Southwark aforesaid, with 
the appertenances, and all my deeds and writ- 
ings touching and concerning the same, and all 
my estate, right, title, interest, term of years, 
and demand whatsoever which I have of and 
unto the same, and of and unto every part and 
parcel thereof." In addition to that property, 
he was also to enjoy a half share in the houses 
in the parish of All Saints Barking which, as 
has been recorded in an earlier chapter, had 
been bequeathed to Katherine Yearwood by her 
second husband, John Elletson. Apart, too, 
from this real estate, John Harvard was to re- 
ceive a legacy of two hundred and fifty pounds. 
To her other son, Thomas Harvard, the mother 
left the remaining half share in the property at 
All Saints Barking, and a sum of one hundred 
pounds. What minor bequests she made, 

202 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

such as gifts to one of the two ministers of St. 
Saviour's Church and legacies to the other 
minister and his wife, have already been re- 
corded, and it only remains to be noted that 
such residue of her estate as remained was to 
be equally divided between her two sons. 

By far the most considerable item in the 
property which John Harvard received from 
his mother, and that from whence the largest 
share in his legacy to the infant college of New 
England was derived, was the Queen's Head 
Inn in the borough of Southwark. Ample 
evidence has already been adduced to show 
what valuable sources of income the inns of 
Southwark were in the seventeenth century, 
and this particular hostelry, which was close 
to the famous Tabard, seems to have enjoyed 
a reputation equal to the best. It had been 
established for many years, and was the recog- 
nised headquarters for the numerous carriers 
plying between London and such important 
places as Godstone, Rye, and Portsmouth. 
That it also enjoyed a good local reputation is 
manifest from the fact that the vestrymen of 

203 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

St. Saviour's Church were wont to hold their 
social gatherings and annual dinners under its 
roof. A record of one such dinner, which took 
place on March 2nd, 1636, when the inn had 
passed into the possession of John Harvard, 
reveals an expenditure of nearly five pounds on 
one meal. If that sum is multiplied by eight 
in order to bring it into harmony with modern 
currency, it will be seen that a few such gather- 
ings would represent no inconsiderable addi- 
tions to the revenue of the hostelry. 

A suggestion has been made that Harvard's 
mother became possessed of the Queen's Head 
under the will of her second husband, but 
there is no evidence to support such a theory. 
In 1593 the property was owned by a man 
named Richard Bowmer, who in that year 
willed it to his wife. Rose Bowmer. Two 
years later Rose Bowmer bequeathed it to her 
son-in-law, Gregory Franklin, and he, in 1624, 
left the property to his young son. That be- 
quest, however, was made under such condi- 
tions as to make it doubtful whether the legacy 
was valid; at any rate, the will of Gregory 

204 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

Franklin's son, dated February, 1635, makes 
no mention of the Queen's Head. It seems 
probable, then, that Katherine Yearwood had 
purchased the inn on her own account for the 
express purpose of bequeathing it to her eldest 
son. 

During the early days of his return home, 
John Harvard was busily occupied with his 
brother Thomas in carrying out the directions 
of his mother's will, of which the two sons 
were joint executors; and one of the earliest 
actions of the two brothers was to make good 
their title to the property situated in the parish 
of All Saints Barking on the other side of the 
Thames. This had been held by their mother 
under two leases from the master of St. Kath- 
erine's hospital, the first being that which se- 
cured the property to her second husband, 
John Elletson, and the other that which trans- 
ferred his rights to her. As the property had 
been left to the brothers in equal shares, a new 
lease became necessary for the purpose of legal- 
ising the joint-ownership, and a copy of that 
document, dated July 25th, 1635, and bearing 

205 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

the signatures of John and Thomas Harvard, 
may be seen- among the muniments of St. 
Katherine's hospital. In this lease the brothers 
are described as "John Harvard, clerke, and 
Thomas Harvard, citizen and clothworker 
of London." 

How and when Thomas Harvard obtained 
his right to call himself a "citizen of London" 
may be easily verified. His house and place 
of business were situated in the parish of St. 
Olive's, Southwark, in the county of Surrey, 
and that district was outside the London 
boundary of those days. Hence, on the sur- 
face, it would seem as though he had no au- 
thority to assume the title of "citizen of Lon- 
don." If, however, reference is made to the 
records of the Clothworkers Company of Lon- 
don, it will be found that Thomas Harvard 
was admitted a freeman of that corporation on 
December 3rd, 1634, and that fact gave him 
full authority to assume the designation of 
"citizen of London." 

On the other hand, it is not at present 
known whence and when John Harvard ac- 

206 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

quired the right to describe himself as a 
"clerk." He is so designated for the first time 
in his mother's will, and twenty- three days 
after that document was signed he assumed 
the title in the new lease for the All Saints 
Barking property. In the record of his mar- 
riage there is no mention of his occupation, but 
in the will of his father-in-law, which was 
drafted in February 1637, he appears once 
again as "clerke." As a general rule in the 
seventeenth century, the word "clerk" im- 
plied an ordained clergyman, and its appli- 
cation to John Harvard by his mother and its 
assumption by himself would seem to in- 
dicate that he was ordained prior to July, 
1635. That such was the case, however, still 
awaits confirmation by adequate documentary 
evidence. 

Having discharged his duties in connection 
with his mother's will, it is not improbable that 
John Harvard spent a considerable portion 
of the remainder of the summer of 1635 at 
Ringmer, in Sussex. In the vicarage there he 
would be able to resume his intercourse with 

207 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

his favourite fellow student, John Sadler, and 
beyond that he had most likely discovered ere 
this a greater attraction in the person of his 
friend's sister, Ann Sadler. The leading fam- 
ily in the Ringmer parish of those days was 
that of the Springetts, into which, some nine 
years later, was to be born a daughter who 
became the wife of William Penn. Had he 
been able to foresee that event, John Har- 
vard would, no doubt, have taken a still keener 
interest in his visits to the parish. Nor, prob- 
ably, would he have been indifferent to the fact 
that the gentle- hearted curate of Selborne, 
Gilbert White, was to make many visits to 
Ringmer in the years unborn. 

Such love-stories and love-letters as survive 
from the seventeenth century possess so unique 
a charm that the lack of any record of John 
Harvard's courtship is greatly to be regretted. 
That Puritanism was not fatal to the tenderer 
emotions of the men and women of those times 
receives emphatic confirmation from the de- 
lightful letters which passed between John 
Winthrop and his wife, and if further proof is 

208 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

required, it may be found in the pages of the 
little-known diary of John Worthington, who 
was one of Harvard's fellow students at Em- 
manuel College. Worthington delayed his en- 
try into the wedded state for ten years longer 
than Harvard, he being thirty- nine at the time 
of his marriage while Harvard was in his 
twenty-ninth year. There was a greater dis- 
parity, also, between their ages and those of the 
ladies they married, for while Worthington's 
bride was twenty- two years younger than him- 
self, only a little more than seven years sepa- 
rated the ages of John Harvard and Ann Sadler. 
In other respects, however, the courtship of 
these two fellow students may well have had 
much in common, and in the absence of any 
love-epistles between Harvard and his be- 
trothed it may not be uninstructive to cite a 
letter each from Worthington and Mary 
Whichcote as vicarious evidence in the love- 
story of Harvard and Ann Sadler. 

Only a month after he had first proposed 
to Miss Whichcote, Worthington addressed 
her in these stately terms: 
14- 209 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

"Dearest Lady. The ambition of these 
lines is to present my most real and dearest 
affections: To do this in this paper- way, is all 
that can be done at this distance of place; but 
I am and shall be passionately desirous, to do 
this in person, before the end of this month. 
It is now a week since I left Frogmore, which 
upon other occasions is accounted no long time, 
but to me, it is a week many times told. For 
the present I please myself, in the constant re- 
membrance of your loves and sweetnesses, and 
all those your lovely and endearing perfections, 
both of body and mind, disposition, and de- 
portment, not forgetting your music. And I 
shall hasten to prepare for that happy time of 
enjoying your ever desired company, and the 
crowning of our affections; for love affects not 
delays. In the meanwhile I shall be exceed- 
ingly desirous in a few lines to understand 
your good health: which with all the happi- 
ness that may attend this life, and that which 
is to come, is entirely desired by him, who is 
"Madam, your servant, 

"John Worthington. " 
210 



riOi 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

If this were an initial attempt, Worthington 
was certainly to be congratulated on his suc- 
cess as a writer of love-letters; but if he is 
to be praised for that effort, no encomium 
can be too great for Mary Whichcote's reply, 
the work, be it remembered, of a mere girl of 
seventeen. 

"Honoured Sir. Your welcome lines are 
come to my hand, than which nothing but 
yourself could have been more welcome to 
me; in which you have expressed a great 
deal of love to me, and that far above my de- 
serving. I cannot but acknowledge the mov- 
ing of my heart to you, that of all the men that 
ever I saw, if I were to chuse of ten thousand, 
my heart would not close with any, as with 
yourself, you having such knowledge, good- 
ness, and lovely disposition, which you have 
manifested to me, and suitableness of temper, 
and in my eye, no person so desirable. And 
if it be the will of God, that we shall be united 
together, I desire your prayers unto him, that 
he would be pleased to enable me to walk to 

211 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

his glory in my place and relation, and that 
our coming together, may be for his glory 
and our comfort. Love covers a multitude of 
faults; and I am persuaded that your love, 
and wisdom, will cover my weaknesses. I 
bless God, I have my bodily health, though 
weak other ways, yet I am willing to be 
"Honoured Sir, your servant 

"Mary Whichcote." 

Probably no violence would be done to the 
facts of the case if we were to substitute the 
names of John Harvard and Ann Sadler for 
those which are adhibited to these two digni- 
fied, yet fascinating letters. In any event, 
they bear witness to the courtly grace which 
characterised the love-making of the seven- 
teenth century. 

Seeing that Ann Sadler's father was vicar 
of Ringmer, it would have been natural to 
look for the record of her marriage with 
John Harvard in the register of that parish, 
and it seems difficult to understand why the 
ceremony did not take place in her father's 

212 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

church. Whatever the cause, the wedding 
was transferred to the adjacent church of South 
Mailing, rebuilt eight years previously, in the 
records of which this entry may be seen: 
"Maryed the 19 day of April, 1636. Mr. 
John Harvard, of the p'ish of St. Olive's, neere 
London, and Anne Sadler of Ringmer." 

Some ten months were to elapse ere John 
Harvard and his wife sailed for New England, 
and as he is described as of the parish of St. 
Olive's it is likely that those months were 
mostly spent under his brother's roof, for, as 
has been stated above, Thomas Harvard's 
home was in that parish. Perhaps John 
Harvard was already meditating his depart- 
ure, and in that event he would naturally 
desire to enjoy the utmost of his brother's 
company, for he alone remained as a link 
between the present and the happy home of 
his boyhood. Besides, Thomas Harvard's 
health was far from satisfactory, and the fol- 
lowing July it became so precarious, he was 
so "sicke and weake in bodie," that he thought 
fit to make his will. Apart from its substan- 

213 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

tial bequests, this document breathes such a 
spirit of affection for its writer's " well-beloved 
brother, John Harvard" as to make it clear 
that the two brothers were deeply attached to 
each other. 

As had been the case with his father, Thomas 
Harvard appears to have prospered greatly in 
business, for his legacies included four hun- 
dred pounds to his wife and three hundred 
pounds to any posthumous child she should 
bear. As, however, no such child was born, 
such details in Thomas Harvard's will as 
relate to that eventuality may be ignored, 
with the result that John Harvard became 
entitled to a sum of two hundred pounds; 
to his brother's half share in the property at 
All Saints Barking minus thirty pounds a 
year as an income for the widow; and to a 
half of such residue of the estate as should 
remain when all other legacies had been 
provided for. Besides these gifts, Thomas 
Harvard specially reserved for his brother 
" my standing bowl of silver gilt, and my 
chest with two locks before excepted, together 

214 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

with my best whole suit of apparel and my 
best cloak." An interesting additional proof 
of the friendship existing between the Har- 
vard family and the Rev. Nicholas Morton, of 
St. Saviour's Church, is furnished by the fact 
that he was associated with John Harvard as 
joint- executor of the will. 

Perhaps towards the close of 1636, or, at 
the latest, early in the following year, John 
Harvard arrived finally at a decision to emi- 
grate to New England, and that being the 
case he would naturally desire to realise as 
much as he possibly could of his property. 
The Queen's Head was too profitable a source 
of income to part with; and as the tenements 
at All Saints Barking were held conjointly 
with his brother, who was still alive, he could 
not dispose of them. In addition, however, 
to his other property indicated above, he had 
somehow come into the possession of four 
small houses in the parish of St. Olive's, and 
these he sold to a sea captain on February 
16th, 1637, for the sum of one hundred and 
twenty pounds. 

215 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

In the records of the equipments of the 
earliest expeditions to New England, little 
is said about provision being made for the 
intellectual life of the emigrants. That the 
needs of the body should be carefully catered 
for was only natural, and there survive many 
evidences of the attention devoted to food 
supplies; on the other hand, it is very rarely 
indeed that one comes across a reference to 
books, and that omission would seem to imply 
that little thought was given to providing 
sustenance for the mind. That this was gen- 
erally the case is obvious from the fact that 
the warm welcome accorded to the widow and 
family of William Ames owed not a little 
of its cordiality to their having brought with 
them the library of that distinguished divine. 
However, no matter what may have been the 
custom of previous emigrants, John Harvard 
had prescience enough to recognise what an 
inestimable value would attach to a good 
library in the New World, and we may be 
certain that one of his chief occupations 
during his last few months in England was 

216 



I 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

the collecting of the books which formed no 
inconsiderable part of his generous legacy to 
the cause of education in New England. 

Now, the collecting of a library in the seven- 
teenth century was no light task. Money, the 
only obstacle in the way of the book-lover to- 
day, was not the chief difficulty then. Har- 
vard did not lack for money; but, incredulous 
as it may seem, what he would lack was the 
opportunity to spend it! To spend it, that is, 
in harmony with his predominant inclinations. 
Strangely enough, even those historians who 
enter into most detail concerning the life of 
this period have little to say about the re- 
straints by which the circulation of theological 
literature was handicapped; it is only by a 
minute and comparative study of many docu- 
ments stored among the state papers of the 
reign of Charles I., and earlier, that some 
idea may be obtained of the obstacles which 
in those days barred the path of the man who 
was set upon building up a library repre- 
sentative of the conflicting religious thought 
of that age. If he were a Papist or a Puritan, 

217 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

his difficulties were increased, for the official 
ban rested with almost equal weight upon the 
books of both those parties. What with the 
Stationers' Company to reckon with, and the 
vigilance of the Star Chamber, and the power 
which officials of the crown possessed to seize 
and destroy books and printing-presses alike, 
the Papist or Puritan who attempted to in- 
troduce himself to the reading public found 
he had undertaken a formidable task. 

Among the many and devious methods 
which Laud adopted to secure the success 
of his eccelesiastical policy, he was astute 
enough to include the muzzling of the press. 
No book could be legally published unless 
it had been licensed by the Stationers' Com- 
pany, and that license could not be obtained 
without the consent of the bishop of London 
or the archbishop of Canterbury. To the 
first of those offices Laud was elected in 1628, 
and to the second in 1633, so that the activity 
he displayed in the repression of Puritan lit- 
erature was in full operation at the time John 
Harvard was collecting his library. Proofs 

218 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

of that activity are scattered all over the 
records of the court of High Commission, that 
iniquitous tribunal which stains the pages of 
the history of England with its nearest ap- 
proach to the Inquisition of Spain. It is a 
sie-nificant fact that Laud's elevation to the 
bishopric of London coincides in point of 
time with a report prepared by three of the 
messengers, or spies, of the High Commis- 
sion, embodying a careful return of the names 
of such booksellers in London as dealt in old 
libraries, mart books, or any others. The 
anonymous "Lordship" for whom this report 
was prepared can hardly have been other 
than Laud himself, for his hand can un- 
doubtedly be recognised in the "directions" 
which the messengers had duly communi- 
cated ,to the booksellers upon whom they 
had called. Those directions included strin- 
gent orders to all the booksellers in question 
to catalogue all their future purchases, and 
refrain from selling any of them until they 
had received his "Lordship's" permission to 
do so. In this curious document of 1628, 

219 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

the writers make special mention of two 
volumes which they had instructed a book- 
seller not to part with until he received further 
orders. Both those obnoxious volumes found 
a place in John Harvard's library, and who 
can refrain the wish that they may have been 
the identical copies which figure in this report 
to his "Lordship" of London? 

Nor, at this distance of time, when the sects 
have learnt toleration, will any lover of liberty 
refrain from taking a certain amount of mali- 
cious pleasure in the many tribulations which 
Laud and his precious Commission were called 
upon to suffer at the hands of a London book- 
seller named Michael Sparke. That worthy 
tradesman deserves to be canonised among 
the apostles of freedom. He appears to have 
attached as much importance to the High 
Commission as to the man in the moon. 
During an entire decade, he made fre- 
quent appearances before that tribunal as a 
culprit, and although he was often admon- 
ished, and many times given an opportunity 
to reflect upon the evil of his ways in the 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

quiet seclusion of a prison, nothing could 
induce him to conduct his business on the 
principles desiderated by the High Commis- 
sion. The messengers of that court cannot 
have enjoyed their visits to this sturdy book- 
seller. On one occasion, such a messenger, 
acting in the protective interests of the king's 
printer, for trying to force his way into Sparke's 
warehouse on a search expedition, was him- 
self arrested on the bookseller's initiative and 
made the subject of legal action; and another 
messenger, who was sent specially by the High 
Commission to seize a prohibited book and 
take Sparke into custody, was himself seized 
and detained by the offender he had come to 
secure ! 

Evidence is not lacking that Michael Sparke 
showed as much enterprise in his business as 
in foiling the efforts of the High Commission. 
He had numerous agents scattered all over 
England, and such books as he could not get 
printed in London, owing to the vigilance of 
Laud's agents, he sent to Oxford to be put to 
press there. This astute move involved an 

221 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Oxford printer, Williara Turner by name, in 
trouble with Laud's inquisition. Among the 
books which Turner was charged with print- 
ing ''without authority" were some sermons ■ 
by Dr. Preston, and a volume entitled "The 
Saints' Legacies," of which he prepared edi- 
tions of two thousand and fifteen hundred 
copies respectively. Both these works were 
included by John Harvard in his library, and 
it is to be hoped that he purchased them from 
the irrepressible Sparke. Indeed, it would be 
pleasant to learn that most, if not all, his books 
were purchased from a tradesman who evi- 
dently deserved well of every lover of liberty. 
How, under such adverse circumstances, 
the supply of books was kept up would be 
difficult to understand were it not for the 
light thrown on that matter by the state 
papers mentioned above. Holland, it ap- 
pears, did more than any other country 
towards maintaining the supply of Puritan 
literature. At this date Sir William Boswell 
held the post of English ambassador at the 
Hague, and his diplomatic duties seem to 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

have included the keeping of a sharp eye on 
the operations of those Dutch printers who 
returned to England in book form those 
Puritan manuscripts with which they were 
so liberally supplied. With one of his letters 
to the English Secretary of State, Sir William 
Boswell enclosed a specimen of a book " wholly 
directed against the ceremonies of the Church 
of England, and in many points very scan- 
dalous against the same," of which the author 
was one Dr. William Ames. Vigorous efforts, 
he said, were being made to get this volume 
into circulation in England. A man named 
Puckle, who, according to the ambassador, 
was "an ignorant, unworthy fellow," was in 
the habit of haunting the quayside at Rotter- 
dam for the purpose of selling the book to 
passengers bound for England, and, in addi- 
tion. Sir William Boswell learnt that some 
three or four hundred copies were being de- 
spatched to London to be "passed for white 
paper, and so never looked into." 

Dr. William Ames was such a popular 
author among the Puritans that the English 

223 



n 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

booksellers and their Dutch agents exercised 
considerable ingenuity in the smuggling of his 
works. In addition to that "white paper" 
device, the masters of the ships from the Low 
Countries, who were nearly all engaged in 
this contraband traffic, had a way, as they 
said, " to cozen the devil." A favourite plan 
was to run their vessels ashore on some sandy 
beach of the English coast, get rid of their 
passengers under the pretext of the ship being 
in danger, and then safely discharge their 
cargo of prohibited divinity. The English 
agents were always on the alert for such un- 
ceremonious deliveries of books, and porters, 
who apparently knew nothing of the contents 
of their loads, were instructed at what shops 
to leave them. On one occasion, three Lon- 
don booksellers were summoned before the 
High Commission to explain why they had 
a certain prohibited book on their premises, 
and they each told a delightful story of how 
the volumes had been deposited in their shops 
by a porter who came they knew not whence 
and vanished they knew not whither. Of 

224 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

course our good friend Michael Sparke was 
one of the three. He told a similar story, 
but garnished it with a statement to the 
effect that when he had read the book and 
found it "dangerous" he saw it was his duty 
to bring the remaining copies into the court. 
He did not add that he had probably sold 
sufficient copies to recoup him for his out- 
lay in that little speculation. 

Because the works of Dr. Ames were so 
popular, the agents of the High Commission 
kept a keener watch for his productions than 
for those of any other Puritan. Two book- 
sellers who had purchased a miscellaneous 
consignment of volumes from Holland at 
this date were, after much pleading, allowed 
to retain and sell all save those whose title- 
pages bore the obnoxious name of William 
Ames. Those particular volumes, which were 
nothing more controversial than commentaries 
on the Psalms, were not to be sold in England 
under pain of a penalty of one hundred pounds. 
Nevertheless, for all the restrictions which were 
placed on the books of this author, John Har- 
15 225 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

vard did not fail to secure several representa- 

live volumes for his library. W 

Perhaps it is not surprising that more than 
sixty per cent, of the books Harvard brought 
to New England were of a theological char- 
acter, and that fact, in view of what has been 
recorded above, throws an instructive light 
upon the amount of labour and caution he 
must have expended in gathering them to- 
gether. Still, when his exertions were at an 
end, and he was able to survey the portly 
folios he had collected at such cost and risk, 
he had the satisfaction of knowing that he 
was in the possession of a library which not 
unworthily represented the position of the 
religious thought of his day. 

Thanks to the Reformation, theological 
opinion was still in a state of constant flux. 
Old landmarks had been swept away, and 
each labourer in that chaotic world addressed 
himself to the task of uprearing new ones. 
It is pathetic to watch how, by innumerable 
councils, and synods, and assemblies, the 
divines of those days struggled with the her- 

226 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

culean labour of formulating a new creed 
which should faithfully define the boundaries 
of the new spiritual world. In the reports 
of some of these synods which Harvard in- 
cluded in his library he at least made sure of 
taking to his new home the very latest deliv- 
erances of theological experts. Nor were the 
controversies of the times less faithfully re- 
flected in other works of a different type. 
While, on the one hand, he was catholic 
enough in his tastes to include some samples 
of the writings of Bellarmine, the redoubt- 
able champion of the Roman church, he 
made sure of an antidote by securing a copy 
of the "Bellarminus Enervatus" of William 
Ames. The presence, too, of a work by Du 
Plessis Mornay is a significant proof of Har- 
vard's unshaken confidence in the Protestant 
cause. That learned author was none other 
than the Huguenot champion, who, by relying 
upon forged quotations from the fathers with 
which he had been craftily supplied, met such 
an ignominious defeat at the hands of the 
Papal advocate during the conference at 

227 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Fontainebleau before Henry IV. in 1600. 
Evidently Mornay had not lost his reputa- 
tion in the Puritan camp. 

Of course the works of Calvin found ade- 
quate representation in Harvard's library ; per- 
haps he, like John Cotton, was in the habit of 
"sweetening his mouth with a piece of Calvin 
before he went to sleep." Such unconscious 
forerunners of the Geneva theologian as Au- 
gustine and Thomas Aquinas also figure in this 
storehouse of divinity ; and among posthumous 
adherents Zanchius and William Ames were 
not overlooked. The name of the latter must 
be familiar to the reader who is acquainted 
with the early history of New England, for, to 
cite only one example, it figures frequently 
amid the sandy tracts of John Cotton's prose, 
and also among the still more dreary desert 
places of the doggerel which he mistook for 
poetry. 

That John Harvard, however, was more en- 
amoured of exegesis than of systematic the- 
ology seems a reasonable conclusion to adduce 
from the prominence he gave in his library to 

228 



I 
I 



k 



LAST YEAKS IN ENGLAND 

commentaries on the Scriptures. Nor could 
any fault be found with the authorities he se- 
lected in that department of sacred learn- 
ing. Certainly, than Henry Ainsworth, Hugh 
Broughton, and John Lightfoot there were not 
in those days three more accomplished or 
profoundly erudite Rabbinical scholars. The 
first named was represented by his deservedly 
famous "Annotations on the Pentateuch"; and 
it may be hoped, for the sake of lighter relief, 
that the pamphlets which are included under 
Broughton's name embraced those amusing 
papers in which the two scholars gravely de- 
bated whether the High Priest's ephod was of 
silk or wool, and whether its colour were of blue, 
or scarlet, or green. That controversy, we are 
told, was followed with breathless interest by 
all the dyers in Amsterdam, and it was carried 
on with as much zest and activity as though 
the most vital interests of religion were at stake. 
A striking illustration of Ainsworth's devotion 
to oriental learning is provided by the story 
which tells how, when he had found a diamond 
of great value, and a Jew came to claim it, the 

229 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

only reward he exacted was that the owner of 
the precious stone should secure him a confer- 
ence with some of his Rabbis, with whom 
Ainsworth was desirous of discussing the Old 
Testament prophecies relating to the Messiah. 
Harvard's marked attention to such works 
as bore upon the text of the Old Testament, 
which is further emphasised by the number of 
Hebrew grammars and lexicons included in 
his library, is a significant proof of the extent 
to which he shared the Puritan preference for 
the Old Testament. It is strange that men 
who laid so much stress theoretically on the 
grace of the New Testament should have 
yielded themselves so completely to practical 
bondage to the harsh legalism of the Old Tes- 
tament. That, no doubt, accounts for the 
unlovely traits of the Puritan character. And 
it is difficult to understand the inconsistency 
which, while ignoring such Levitical com- 
mands as those relating to circumcision, ruth- 
lessly enforced the Mosaic law in cases of adul- 
tery, in inexcusable forgetfulness of the "He 
that is without sin among you, let him first cast 

230 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

a stone at her" of Christ. Did the New Eng- 
land Puritan never preach on the eighth chap- 
ter of the gospel according to John ? 

For all the care which Harvard evidently 
bestowed upon the selection of the theological 
portion of his library, is there one among those 
ponderous folios which to-day is ministering 
to the living religion of men ? Even if those 
particular books which Harvard's own hands 
had touched had been fortunately spared from 
the holocaust of flames in which they were re- 
duced to ashes, would they not have been 
reposing quietly on the upper shelves of the li- 
brary, encrusted with the dust of many gener- 
ations ? If, now and then, at rare intervals, 
their repose had been disturbed by some curi- 
ous student of the dead past, who can doubt 
but that they would have been returned to 
their place with Browning's emphatic verdict: 

" Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment-day ! " 

Few, very few indeed, of the some three hun- 
dred volumes which Harvard carried with him 
to New England are continuing an active min- 

231 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

istry in the intellectual life of to-day. Among 
the classics, it is true, he chose with rare wis- 
dom ; nor Homer, nor Plutarch, nor Pliny, nor 
Juvenal, nor, above all, Horace, will ever lose 
their hold over the hearts of men. Bacon's 
Essays, too, possess the secret of perennial 
youth ; but among all the rest of these books it 
would be difficult to find one which has been 
thought worthy of republication during the 
last few generations. 

When we recall the deathless names which 
were written in the annals of English literature 
during the Elizabethan era, it is surprising that 
Harvard's library has so few connecting links 
with works which are still the delight of count- 
less thousands. Did he really subscribe to the 
ultra-Puritan tenet that it was sinful to read 
th2 "Faerie Queene".'^ Or was he of the 
opinion that the "Mirror for Magistrates," the 
"Divine Emblems" of Quarles, and the effu- 
sions of Wither were ample representatives of 
English poetry? Wither was so innoxious 
that his popularity with the Puritans is not 
difiicult to understand ; but his reputation out- 

232 



I 



A 



LAST YEARS IN ENGLAND 

side their camp is perhaps best illustrated by 
Sir John Denham's plea to the king to spare 
that versifier from the scaffold on the ground 
that " so long as Wither lives, I shall not be the j 

worst poet in England." Perhaps Harvard had / 

little inclination for poetry, and in that event / 

he might have been excused if he had restricted 
himself to the "Mirror for Magistrates" alone. i 

In the eight hundred and seventy-five folio { 

pages of that compendium of verse, wherein 
many different authors gave poetical form to the 
deeds of the unfortunate characters of English 
history, there was copious reading for count- 
less leisure hours. And the famous "In- 
duction" of Sackville, with which the volume 
opened, was no mean example of the imagina- 
tive and vivid poetry of the Elizabethan period. 
It would be exceedingly difficult, if not im- 
possible, to arrive at an accurate estimate of 
the total amount Harvard spent on his library. 
That he did not spare his purse is evident 
from his purchase of Savile's famous Eton edi- 
tion of the works of Chrysostom, which, pub- 
lished in 1612, consisted of eight volumes and i 

233 ! 



JOHlSr HAKVARD AND HIS TIMES 

cost nine pounds a set. When the average 
price of books in those days is taken into ac- 
count, it seems reasonable to conclude that in 
acquiring the three hundred or so volumes of 
which his library consisted, Harvard must 
have expended a sum not much less than two 
hundred pounds. If, to adjust once more the 
wide difference between seventeenth century 
and modern currencies, that amount is mul- 
tiplied by eight, it will be seen that here at 
any rate was one prospective citizen of New 
England who, whatever fate might be in 
store for the hunger of his body, was re- 
solved that the hunger of his mind should 
not go unappeased. 



234 



I 



VII 
THE NEW WORLD 



CHAPTER VII 
THE NEW WORLD 

SEVERAL of the ministers who became 
conspicuous in the early history of New 
England placed on record an explicit 
statement of the reasons why they left their 
native land. John Cotton confined himself to 
three causes, which set forth how he was de- 
barred from exercising his ministry in his old 
home; how Christ had commanded his disci- 
ples when they were persecuted in one country 
to flee to another; and, finally, what longing 
he had to enjoy all, and not merely one or 
two, of the ordinances of God. 

Thomas Shepard entered into fuller de- 
tails. His Apologia comprised eight different 
counts, the last of which, in true sermonic style, 
embraced five subdivisions. Having been 
ejected from one church, no call to any other 
had reached him ; his friends and his wife were 
in favour of his going ; he was now convinced of 

237 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

the "evil of ceremonies," and shared Cotton's 
eagerness to enjoy all the ordinances; more- 
over, he felt that " the Lord departed from Eng- 
land when Hooker and Cotton went," a reason 
which, while highly complimentary to the two 
divines in question, seems to suggest a remiss- 
ness of Providential care for those thousands 
of the faithful who were never able to leave 
their native land. It is not necessary to repeat 
the five subdivisions of Shepard's eighth 
cause for emigrating, especially as one of them 
seems to make all the others as unnecessary as 
the unrecorded seventeen reasons why Queen 
Elizabeth was not honoured with a salute from 
that town which did not possess any guns. " / 
sa«?," wrote Shepard with remarkable pre- 
science, " that this time could not be long with- 
out trouble from King Charles^ 

Which, or how many, out of all these reasons 
influenced John Harvard it is impossible to say. 
His early death from consumption suggests 
that considerations of health may have played 
some part in his decision. What, however, 
must not be lost sight of, is the fact that his 

238 



THE NEW WORLD 

seven years at Emmanuel College had familiar- 
ised him with the idea of the new home which 
America was offering to all those who yearned 
for greater religious and civil liberty than was 
possible in the England of Laud and Charles. 
It should not be forgotten that one of the most 
important meetings of that pioneer band which 
included John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley 
among its number, was held at Cambridge in 
the month of August, 1629, when Harvard had 
been a student there for more than two years. 
Dudley, it will be remembered, was steward 
to the Earl of Lincoln, in whose household, as 
has been stated in a previous chapter, Anthony 
Tuckney, one of the tutors and leading fellows 
of Emmanuel, had served as chaplain. Hence, 
it is not improbable that, in conversation with 
Tuckney, Harvard became early acquainted 
with the inner history of the Winthrop settle- 
ment. Certainly it is unlikely that Dudley 
would visit Cambridge without having an in- 
terview with Tuckney. 

Some time early in the month of May, 1631, 
the Countess of Lincoln had delivered into her 

239 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

hands the lengthy letter which Thomas Dud- 
ley had despatched from New England on the 
last day of March. Those were times when 
a letter from that quarter of the world "was 
venerated as a sacred script, or as the writing 
of some holy prophet; 'twas carried many 
miles, where divers came to hear it." That 
more than usual publicity was given to this 
letter, which Dudley wrote so laboriously by the 
fireside, and on his knee for lack of a table, can- 
not be doubted. He penned the epistle spe- 
cially for the guidance and " use of such as shall 
hereafter intend to increase our Plantation," 
and that several manuscript copies were made 
of it is beyond question. One copy, we may 
be sure, passed into the hands of Tuckney, 
who at this time was associated with John Cot- 
ton in ministerial work in Old Boston, and by 
him it would doubtless be forwarded to Em- 
manuel College for the information of such 
students there as had given signs of a desire to 
proceed to New England. In this way it may 
well have happened that Dudley's letter came 
under the eyes of John Harvard. If so, per- 

240 




MEMORIAL WINDOW IN THE CIIAPEL OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE, 
CAMBRIDGE. — fuge 2+0. 



THE NEW WORLD 

laps he read these words as a call to himself: 
'If any godly men, out of religious ends, will 
;ome over to help us in the good work we are 
ibout, I think they cannot dispose of them- 
lelves nor of their estates more to God's glory 
md the furtherance of their own reckoning." 

None of the colleges of Cambridge contrib- 
ited so liberally to the ministerial ranks of 
;arly New England as Emmanuel. As we 
lave seen, that foundation was essentially 
i^uritan in its spirit and reputation, and those 
)f its sons who had found and were enjoying 
mstinted religious liberty in the New World 
ost no opportunity to advertise their happiness 
imong such of their brethren as were still in 
pondage. Hence, during the entire period of 
lis career as a student. Harvard must have 
Deen in close and constant touch with the latest 
lews from that happy land where the uncon- 
stitutional extortions of Charles and the re- 
igious despotism of Laud were unknown. 

Nor should another important factor be 
Dverlooked. By the time Harvard had com- 
pleted his career as a student, a considerable 
16 241 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

literature relating to New England was in 
existence. The redoubtable John Smith had 
been early in the field with his three volumes, 
in which he had penned many a sentence 
calculated to sharpen the curiosity of such 
as pined for "fresh woods and pastures new." 
On the mere topographical side, he may have 
greatly helped Harvard to his decision. To 
a contemplative man, whose moorings to his 
native land were none of the strongest, such 
a picture as this must have appealed with 
irresistible force: "Here nature and liberty 
affords us that freely, which in England we 
want, or it costeth us dearly. What pleasure 
can be more, than to recreate themselves 
before their own doors, in their own boats 
upon the sea, where man, woman, and child, 
with a small hook and line, by angling, may 
take diverse sorts of excellent fish, at their 
pleasures.^" 

What, however, counted for far more with 
Harvard than the natural attractions of the 
New World was, we may be sure, its freedom 
from religious oppression; and, seeing that 

242 



--■■' '-^-r-'-C-'^-i •■ • ■■ -^ -r^-.,^-,.^. 



THE NEW WORLD 

he made Charlestown his objective, he un- 
doubtedly would take most interest in such 
pubhcations as offered information concern- 
ing the colony in Massachusetts Bay. In 
the London shop of Michael Sparke, whose 
sturdy Puritan inclinations were noted in a 
previous chapter, Harvard would be able to 
purchase a copy of Francis Higginson's *' New 
England's Plantation." Many a voyager to 
the New World seems to have found the chief 
motive for his journey in the highly- coloured 
narrative of that volume, the first in point of 
time, and not the least in persuasive eloquence, 
of those recruiting pamphlets which in after 
years were to pour forth in such abundance 
from the press of America. Higginson even 
excelled Smith in his eulogy of the natural 
charms of New England. To his fertile im- 
agination, those attractions presented them- 
selves in such legions that his chronicling pen 
seems to toil after them in vain. Such a 
fertile soil as was to be "admired at"; kine 
and goats do thrive and prosper "scarce to 
be believed"; even in those early days they 

243 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

had "already a quart of milk for a penny"; 
while to speak of corn increasing sixty-fold 
was mere child's play, "what will you say 
of two-hundred-fold, and upwards?" By an 
easy sum in arithmetic, thirteen gallons of 
corn were magically transformed in a year 
into hard cash to the amount of over three 
hundred pounds. Why, even children, by 
casting a little corn into the earth, could earn 
more than their own maintenance. And as 
for green peas, and turnips, and parsnips, 
and carrots — well, the governor had grow- 
ing in his garden as good peas as any ever 
seen in England, and the representatives of 
those other humbler vegetables were un- 
doubtedly "bigger and sweeter" than any 
to be found in the old home. Perhaps, how- 
ever, Higginson rose to his most chastened 
eloquence in his description of the air of 
New England. To Harvard it may have 
counted little that a mouthful of that air 
was "better than a whole draught of Old 
England's ale"; but he probably scanned 
with a wistful eye those hurrying sentences 

244 



rAig 



THE NEW WORLD 

in which Higginson piled up proof after proof 
of the health-giving properties of that most 
wonderful atmosphere. Perhaps Harvard did 
not learn until later that even that marvellous 
elixir could not keep Higginson alive for much 
more than a year. 

More sober and far more accurate were the 
pages of William Wood's "New England's 
Prospect," which Harvard would have been 
able to peruse at least two years before his 
departure. That veracious chronicler did not 
omit the shadows of the picture, albeit he 
showed that much of the shadow was born 
of the lack of foresight which hurried a man 
into a new country without provision for his 
common needs. If, then. Harvard restrained 
the imaginative flights of Higginson with the 
ballast of Wood's facts, he should have been 
under no delusions as to the country towards 
which his thoughts were turning. 

During the two years which had passed 
away since Thomas Shepard sailed, much 
had happened in England to make good his 
prophecy as to the speedy coming of '* trouble 

245 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

from King Charles." Eight years had al- 
ready gone by without the representatives of 
the people in Parliament assembled having 
any voice in the government of the nation. 
The king had been his own Parliament and 
his own ministry. He and his two willing 
tools, Wentworth and Laud, had controlled 
the affairs of State and Church utterly heed- 
less and independent of public opinion. Now, 
however, that unholy triumvirate was drawing 
near to its final catastrophe. Still, as the 
tragedy moved to its close, it was to be accom- 
panied by events which were more potent than 
any before or since in directing the thoughts 
of Eno-lishmen across the Atlantic. 

That his treasury might be replenished with 
means ample enough for the support of a 
standing army, the one weapon he lacked 
in completing the oppression of England, 
Charles readily agreed to the imposition of 
a national tax under the specious name of 
Ship Money. In previous generations, in 
times of war, the seaport towns of England 
had willingly provided ships, or money with 

246 



THE NEW WORLD 

which to purchase ships, in defence of their 
native land. But England was at peace with 
the world, and this tax was to be paid by 
dwellers in the most remote rural districts as 
well as by those who lived along the coast; 
and, above all, the object of the tax was well 
known to be not maritime defence but the 
creation of such an army as would banish 
the thought of liberty for ever. In the pros- 
pect of such an eventuality, and in the face 
of this most iniquitous attack upon its civil 
rights, England was more deeply stirred than 
she had been for many generations. With 
this hour of crisis, came the man in the per- 
son of John Hampden, whose stalwart fight 
against the king and all his minions must 
often have thrilled the spirit of John Harvard 
during his last months on his native soil. 

As Wentworth was working his way to the 
headsman's block by his activity in the matter 
of Ship Money, so Laud was preparing a 
similar doom for himself by his insane efforts 
to force a liturgy on the people of Scotland, 
a liturgy too, which, "wherever it dijffered 

247 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

from that of England, differed, in the judg- 
ment of all rigid Protestants, for the worse." 
Hitherto the Scots had used, and had grown 
to revere, that order of divine service which 
John Knox had drafted in harmony with the 
spirit of Calvin; now, to the accompaniment 
of compulsory surplices, and the introduction 
of a book of Canons which placed the govern- 
ment of the church solely in the hands of 
bishops, this was to give place to a liturgy 
which out-Lauded the prayer-book of the 
Church of England. With such clouds as 
these brooding darkly over his native land, 
what wonder was it that John Harvard should 
turn to New England and its clear skies of 
civil and religious freedom .? 

When he sailed is not known. All that is 
certain is that it was on some date subsequent 
to February the 16th, and prior to May the 
5th, 1637. It has been shown that on the 
first of those days John Harvard concluded 
the sale of some of his real estate in South- 
wark; and on the second, the Rev. Nicholas 
Morton presented alone for probate the will 

248 



I 



THE NEW WORLD 

of Thomas Harvard, and was granted the 
usual power of executor. The document re- 
cording that fact bears that a similar power 
was reserved for John Harvard, "when he 
should come to seek it." That phrase is as 
conclusive proof that he had left England, as 
the document of February the 16th is that at 
that date he was still in the country. Some- 
where, then, between the middle of February 
and the first week in May, Harvard had 
sailed away to the New World. The prob- 
abilities are all in favour of his departure hav- 
ing taken place at the end of April. His 
earliest appearance in the annals of New 
England bears the date of August the 6th, 
and as that is a record of his being admitted 
a townsman of Charlestown it is probable 
that he had been some few days at least in 
the country. Seeing that voyages to New 
England were made in periods of time vary- 
ing from five weeks to six months, no hard 
and fast average can be arrived at, but it 
seems to have been thought that a passage 
of twelve weeks was what might generally 

249 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

be expected. That being the case, Harvard 
may well have spent the months of May, June, 
and July on the ocean. 

So much light has been thrown upon his 
life-story by the discoveries of recent years, 
that further research among the records of 
the past may yet reveal the actual date of 
his sailing, and the name of the ship in which 
he made his journey. Given those facts, we 
may then be able to decide whether he had 
much difficulty in leaving his native land. 
That it was no easy matter to get away, 
especially at the time he sailed, is made clear 
by several records in the Colonial Papers of 
Great Britain. A few years before, the Coun- 
cil for New England had formulated a strin- 
gent order to the effect that no ships, passen- 
gers, or goods were to be allowed to leave for 
that country without its authority. Of course 
John Harvard would not have any difficulty 
in obtaining the permission of the Council 
for New England; but greater and more 
peremptory than its authority was that of 
the officers of the crown. Only a month or 

250 



THE NEW WORLD 

so before he sailed, the owners of a ship named 
the "Hector" appealed to the Admiralty for 
the release of their vessel, which was under 
contract for a voyage to New England, and 
which, when all the passengers were on board, 
and everything ready for a start, had been 
seized for the king's service. Perhaps the 
seductive bribe of three thousand pounds, 
which the king was to receive upon the im- 
ported goods brought back by the vessel, had 
most to do with securing its release. 

It was not alone in their choosing for a new 
home a land of which very few had certain 
knowledge, that the heroism of the pioneers 
of New England consisted. Much greater 
courage, surely, was manifested in their so 
cheerfully facing the dangers of the ocean in 
the tiny, and often unseaworthy, vessels of 
the seventeenth century. To the modern 
traveller, the largest of the pilgrim ships 
would seem fitted for little more than the 
life-boat service of an ordinary liner. Now 
and again in these days some wooer of sen- 
sational fame makes his way across the 

251 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Atlantic in a small craft, solely for the news- 
paper "glory" which is certain to reward his 
feat; but the pioneers of New England did 
that sort of thing all the time, and seem to 
have thought little of it. 

Exactly a year after the most probable date 
of Harvard's departure, the credulous John 
Josselyn made his first voyage to -the New 
World, and the picture he gives of his journey 
can hardly be an unfaithful record of the ex- 
periences of a year before. Harvard's ample 
means would allow him to take a passage on 
such a ship of three hundred tons as that on 
which Josselyn travelled. He, too, would 
probably make his departure from Grave- 
send, and may also have witnessed the " press- 
ing" for the royal navy of several of the sailors 
of the ship before she was free of the English 
coast. An equipment of twenty cannons, an 
ominous reminder that there were pirates on 
the high seas in those days, appears to have 
been usual on a vessel of this size ; while, with 
a crew of some fifty men, and a passenger 
list totalling up to thrice that figure, such a 

252 



THE NEW WORLD 

craft would carry on an average some two 
hundred souls. 

On that long voyage there was little to vary 
the monotony of daily life. It is true the Puri- 
tans lost no time in availing themselves of their 
religious freedom; no sooner was England left 
behind than they began to revel in prayers, and 
sermons, and other pious exercises. Even for 
such enthusiasts, however, it must have been 
a relief to sight an " island of ice, three leagues 
in length, mountain high, in form of land, with 
bays and capes like high cliff land, and a river 
pouring off it into the sea." Apart from such 
sights at sea as still greet the traveller on the 
Atlantic, the voyages of these pioneers seem to 
have been marked by few incidents save such 
as were caused by the unruly spirits from which 
none of the vessels appear to have been free. 
The ship which carried John Winthrop to 
his destination had several lawless passen- 
gers on board. Two were of a pugnacious 
disposition, but their ardour for fisticuffs was 
probably cooled by their having their hands 
tied behind them and being compelled to pace 

253 



JOHN HjVRVARD and HIS TIMES 

the deck until nightfall in that condition. 
Even the servants of Winthrop's company were 
not above reproach, for one of them was dis- 
covered to have bargained with a child for three 
biscuits a day in return for a box valued at 
three-pence. No doubt the sinfulness of this 
unequal bargain was regarded as consisting 
in its inducement to foster a habit of theft in 
the child, and that may account for the severity 
of the servant's punishment, which adjudged 
him to have his hands tied to a bar while, for 
a couple of hours, he stood with a stone- 
weighted basket slung from his neck. Such 
offences as these, with thefts of drink and lem- 
ons and other luxuries, which occurred on 
Josselyn's boat, may also have caused a little 
excitement on the voyage of John Harvard. 

On four days out of each week, these seven- 
teenth century passengers seem to have been 
regaled with a fish diet, and on other days the 
rations included about a pound of salt beef or 
pork for each adult. Dried peas appear to 
have been the only vegetables carried; and 
for the rest the daily menu comprised oat- 

254 



THE NEW WORLD 

meal, bread, butter, and cheese, and copious 
draughts of what was called "six shilling beer." 
Now and again the sailors caught some fresh 
fish, but if their angling was prosecuted on 
Sunday, Harvard may have followed the ex- 
ample of the Puritans who sailed with Josselyn 
and thrown his share back into the sea. 

Rarely indeed was one of these protracted 
voyages completed without death making its 
appearance on the vessel. If the victim hap- 
pened to be a sailor, he was usually "a most 
profane fellow," and his demise was Interpreted 
as a divine judgment; if, on the other hand, 
the child of a Puritan was taken, It was either 
regarded as a call to Increased godliness or ex- 
plained by the reflection that the child would 
not have lived long even on land. The dreaded 
smallpox sometimes broke out In mid Atlantic, 
and it Is not uncommon to find a death attrib- 
uted to consumption. Perhaps, on that score. 
Harvard's wife may have had many anxious 
thoughts for her husband on their long journey. 
She knew not that neither the perils of the 
ocean nor the ravages of disease could thwart 

255 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

the service he was destined to render on the 
shores of the New World. 

Not unnaturally, perhaps, many of the Puri- 
tans have been charged with leaving England 
in anything but an amiable state of temper; 
one writer, indeed, noted the "savage fury with 
which they deserted their native land"; but 
that this was the emotion with which the ma- 
jority of the exiles started on their long journey 
it is impossible to believe. The eloquent Hig- 
ginson is said to have improved the occasion by 
calling all the passengers to the stern of the ves- 
sel and delivering himself of the apostrophe: 
" We will not say, as the Separatists were wont 
to say at their leaving of England, ' Farewell, 
Babylon! Farewell, Rome! ' But we will say, 
' Farewell, dear England ! Farewell, the Church 
of God in England, and all the Christian 
friends there! ' " In their valedictory address, 
Winthrop and his company declared that they 
could not part from their native country " with- 
out much sadness of heart and many tears in 
our eyes"; and Edward Johnson, who was 
one of that band, protested that "for England's 

256 



THE NEW WORLD 

sake they are going from England, to pray 
without ceasing for England." 

Harvard, we may be sure, shared to the full 
in those natural emotions. The graves of 
those he loved were all in the soil of that " dear, 
dear land"; and there, too, as he then thought, 
still lived his one brother, the last save himself 
of that happy family circle of but a few years 
ago. Nor is it believable that the prospect of 
religious freedom in a far-off land could crush 
down that devoted affection for England which 
her children have never cherished more warmly 
than they did in the seventeenth century. 
Such sad thoughts, too, as would inevitably 
arise as he saw the green fields and white cliffs 
of his native land fading from his sight, must 
have been overcast with a deeper melancholy 
by the remembrance of his brother's ill-health. 
John and Thomas Harvard were never to meet 
again. Only a few days at the most after his 
brother sailed, Thomas Harvard closed his 
eyes in death. Thus, long ere he set foot 
on the shores of the New World, John Har- 
vard's personal estate had been materially in- 
17 357 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

creased under the provisions of his brother's 
will. 

Harvard was fortunate and yet unfortunate 
in the hour of his arrival in New England; 
fortunate in the season of the year, unfortu- 
nate in that the entire community was dis- 
tracted by a rancorous religious controversy. 

To eyes which had gazed for so many weeks 
upon the ocean's wide expanse, the picture of 
Boston Bay in those midsummer days of 1637 
must have been a grateful relief. On the left 
the headland of Hull, and on the right Win- 
throp promontory, stretched out a sheltering 
welcome to the weary voyagers, a welcome 
which would gather emphasis as the high cliffs 
of the harbour islands were seen to "shoul- 
der out the boisterous seas." Island and 
mainland alike were clad in their full summer 
verdure, the rich green of grass and tree blend- 
ing harmoniously with the white surf which 
laved the shore and the clear azure of the over- 
arching heavens. In the background, prime- 
val forests lent a darker mass to the picture 
which shaded off in final distance to the purple 

258 



THE NEW WORLD 

haze of Blue Hills. A great contrast, no doubt, 
in Harvard's eyes, to the well- trimmed land- 
scapes of his native land, but fair in promise of 
the natural attractions of his new home. 

As the vessel which bore him manoeuvred 
her way to her moorings, it is not improbable 
that Harvard had sight of the ship in which 
Sir Henry Vane was setting out on his return 
journey to England, for it is not unlikely that 
the arrival of Harvard and the departure of 
Vane would synchronise almost to a day. So 
notable, too, was the send-off of the late Gov- 
ernor that even a new arrival would realise that 
more than usual importance attached to the 
parting guest. The vessel in which Vane was 
to sail was at anchor not far from Long Island, 
and the boat which carried him on board was 
accompanied by quite a flotilla of small craft, 
filled with his enthusiastic friends. Such as 
watched his departure from the shore sped 
him on his way with repeated musket- volleys, 
the echoes of which were soon lost in the 
salute poured forth by the guns of the fort. 
Harvard may well have wondered what all 

259 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

this enthusiasm might portend. But not for 
long. 

Landing, as it seems, at Charlestown, Har- 
vard would soon learn that no one there, or in 
any other settlement of the colony, dared give 
habitation to himself and wife for longer than 
three weeks unless he was able to produce an 
official permission. No doubt he had brought 
with him such credentials from Anthony Tuck- 
ney and other well-known Puritans as enabled 
him readily to obtain the necessary permission, 
for on August the 6th he was received as a 
townsman at Charlestown "with promise of 
such accommodations as we best can"; but 
that he should have been met on landing with 
such a law, enacted only a month or two earlier, 
must have prompted questions which speedily 
led to his learning the reason for Vane's bois- 
terous send-off. For the alien act of May, 
1637, the first example of such legislature in 
the annals of America, had immediate refer- 
ence to the religious controversy which was 
raging in Boston when John Harvard reached 
New England. 

260 




IN MEMORY OF 

JOHN HARVARD A.M. 

A MEMBER of EMMANUEL COLLEGE 

WHO EMIGRATED TO 

MASSACHUSETTS BAY 

AND THERE DYING 

IN l038 

BEQUEATHED TO A COLLEGE 

NEWLY ESTABLISHED 

BY THE GENERAL COURT 

HIS LIBRARY 

AND ONE HALF OF HIS ESTATE 

WHEREFORE 

HIS NAME IS BORNE BY 

HARVARD COLLEGE 

THAT ELDEST 

OF THE SEMINARIES 

WHICH ADVANCE LEARNING 

AND PERPETUATE IT 

TO POSTERITY 

THROUGHOUT AMERICA 

THISTABLRT ERhXTED BY HARVARD 
MEN RECORDS THEIR GRATITUDE TO 
THEIR FOUNDER IN THE COLLEGE WHICH 
FOSTERED HIS BENEFICENT SPIRIT 




''^i>^^^M 




MEMORIAL TABLET IN THE CHAPEL OF EMMANLEL COLLEGE, 
CAMBRIDGE— rrtz/f 260. 



THE NEW WORLD 

There is no chapter in the early annals of 
the Bay State which one would so willingly ef- 
face as that which records the pitiless persecu- 
tion and clerical vengeance with which Anne 
Hutchinson was hounded from Boston. She 
may have been a visionary, and possessed by 
an over- weening confidence in her own ability 
to interpret the Bible, but the same charges 
may with equal truth be urged against her per- 
secutors to a man. To claim, as has so fre- 
quently been done, that her heresy needed to 
be crushed in the interests of the community 
at large, is to admit that Laud himself was the 
purest and most zealous patriot that ever lived. 
For Winthrop himself, for the Rev. John 
Wilson, and all the ministers who figured so 
shamefully in that episode, no defence is pos- 
sible which does not at the same time elevate 
Laud to the rank of a martyr. There is no 
other alternative. 

For more than a year prior to Harvard's 
arrival, the doings and doctrines of this female 
heretic had been the chief topic of debate in 
Boston and its vicinity. Nor, probably, did 

261 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

the good Puritans of those times regret the 
initiation of a discussion which lent a spice of 
excitement to the humdrum routine of their 
daily life. And as it was a discussion about 
religion, it harmonised perfectly with their 
temperament. Even to this day, the more a 
congregation prides itself upon its orthodoxy, 
the keener is its relish of a heresy hunt. Every 
fresh arrival at this time was speedily plied with 
all the pros and cons of the Hutchinsonian 
controversy, and Harvard, being a minister, 
would be supposed to be specially interested 
in the matter, and coached accordingly with 
the fullest possible details. What did he 
think of it all ? During those weary weeks on 
the ocean, his heart must have been full of the 
ideal New England to which he was sailing; 
a country, as he fondly thought, where the 
Church of God was at peace, and the only 
strife of the righteous would be a zealous emu- 
lation of one another in Christian graces. 
That the serpent of false doctrine should have 
obtruded into this paradise, would never cross 
his thoughts. To find this ideal so rudely and 

262 



THE NEW WORLD 

so quickly shattered must have been a griev- 
ous disappointment to John Harvard, as it was 
to that other new-comer whose distress is so 
quaintly pictured in a record of the time. 
Landing with high expectations of the feast of 
divine ordinances he was so soon to enjoy, this 
fresh arrival fell into the hands of the heretics 
themselves, whose expositions of the "new 
light" they had found so bewildered the poor 
stranger that he "betook himself to a narrow 
Indian path, in which his serious meditations 
soon led him, where none but senseless trees 
and echoing rocks make answer to his heart- 
easing moan." If a few of the orthodox had 
emulated this forerunner of Thoreau, it might 
have tended to the peace of the Boston Church. 
Instead of pouring out their sorrows to 
"senseless trees and echoing rocks," they were, 
at the time of Harvard's arrival, preparing to 
proclaim them from the house-tops. Matters 
had, indeed, reached such a crisis that the or- 
der had gone forth for the assembling of a 
synod at Newtown — the Cambridge of to-day 
— whereat, once and for all, the collective 

263 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

clerical and lay wisdom of the colony was to 
adjudicate on the false doctrines which Mrs. 
Hutchinson and her friends were teaching. 

All this hubbub had had an apparently inno- 
cent beginning. About a couple of years after 
her arrival in Boston, Mrs. Hutchinson con- 
ceived the idea of holding meetings for her own 
sex in her own home, the primary idea of which 
was praiseworthy enough. Many of the moth- 
ers of the community were not always able to 
attend the Sunday services in the meeting- 
house, and in order that they might not be de- 
prived of the wisdom which fall from the lips 
of the ministers, Mrs. Hutchinson undertook 
to entertain them with a summary of what had 
been said in the sermons they had not heard. 
So far all was well. In fact, those informal 
gatherings were regarded as additional evi- 
dences of the divine presence. Ere long, how- 
ever, from being a mere reporter of the good 
things spoken by the Rev. John Wilson and 
his colleague, the Rev. John Cotton, Mrs. 
Hutchinson developed into an expositor of 
their utterances, and then into a critic. In 

264 



THE NEW WORLD 

fact, she evolved a religious system of her own 
which, in substance, was little more than an 
adaptation of the leading tenet of Antinomian- 
ism. Briefly put, she came to the conclusion 
that the Holy Spirit dwelt actually in every 
true believer, and that such were, in conse- 
quence, under no obligation to the law of the 
Old Testament. It was a necessary corollary 
of this position that correct conduct in life and 
outward sanctity of demeanour were by no 
means infallible tokens that the persons who 
produced such evidences were really the chil- 
dren of God. By these leading principles 
Mrs. Hutchinson proceeded to criticise the 
preachers of the New England churches, with 
the result that she soon decided there were only 
two who were in the Covenant of Grace, those 
two being the Rev. John Cotton, and her 
brother-in-law, the Rev. John Wheelwright. 
All the others, including the Rev. John Wilson, 
the pastor of the Boston church, were under the 
Covenant of Works, and hence numbered 
among the eternally damned. 

Such was the magnetism Mrs. Hutchinson 
265 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

exercised that the majority of the members of 
the Boston church became her adherents, 
chief among them being Sir Henry Vane. So 
long as he remained in the colony he, both in 
the affairs of the church and in the delibera- 
tions of the General Court, afforded the Hutch- 
insonian party his unfailing support; and it 
was to mark their appreciation of his services, 
and their hostility to Winthrop, who sided with 
the Rev. John Wilson, that they had given him 
that notable send-off which Harvard had most 
likely witnessed on his arrival. 

Hardly had Vane sailed away, than prepar- 
ations were set on foot for the synod which has 
been referred to above. Its members included 
"all the teaching elders through the country," 
in other words, all the twenty-five ministers 
who already held charges in the colony; and 
also "some new come out of England, not 
yet called to any place here." That statement 
from Winthrop's pen suggests the inevitable 
conclusion that John Harvard was one of the 
clerical members of the famous Newtown (or 
Cambridge) synod. It is certain that he had 

266 



THE NEW WORLD 

arrived before August the 6th, and, as Win- 
throp states, the fact that he had not been 
called to any church would not disqualify him 
from becoming a member of the assembly, 
which did not meet until the last day of August. 
Harvard, as a new-comer was in a position to 
regard the proceedings of the synod from a 
more impartial standpoint than almost any 
other member, and that he took a keen interest 
in those twenty-four days of theological dis- 
cussion may be reasonably inferred from the 
fact that in collecting his library he had de- 
voted so much attention to the reports of other 
synods already famous in the history of the 
church. To the modern mind, however, 
which has not the faintest interest in the futile 
talk on which those old Puritans wasted twenty- 
four precious days, what is most of note is that 
Harvard's presence at the synod made him 
familiarly acquainted with those verdant acres 
on which his own immortal monument was to 
arise. For the heresy hunt of the autumn of 
1637 was conducted in the Newtown church, a 
structure of roughly-hewn logs, which was sit- 

267 



JOHN HARVAUD AND HIS TIMES 

uated not far from the spot where the buildings 
of Harvard University now stand. 

Happily it is not necessary to follow the 
proceedings of the Newtown synod, nor the 
equally sterile debates which in General Court 
and Boston church- meeting marked the sev- 
eral stages of Mrs. Hutchinson's relentless per- 
secution. Perhaps Harvard was present on 
most of those occasions, without, however, 
taking any active part therein. As a compar- 
ative stranger, he would be little disposed to 
interfere in that unseemly family wrangle, and, 
moreover, there was one side issue of the con- 
troversy in which he had far greater interest. 

For, when all the circumstances are consid- 
ered, it does not seem improbable that the 
original conception of the "schoale or col- 
ledge," which makes its sudden appearance 
in the records of the General Court in 1636, 
had its origin in the Hutchinsonian contro- 
versy. There can be no question whatever 
that the primary idea of those who promoted 
the college was to ensure a supply of ministers 
untainted by any of the heresies of the Old 

268 



THE NEW WORLD 

World; and the advent of Wheelwright, and 
the alien law of May, 1637, which was intended 
to protect the community from such of his 
supporters as were on their way to New Eng- 
land, are, in the relation of cause and effect, 
indications that the authorities were alive to 
theological danger. No doubt, under any 
circumstances, provision would have been 
made for education in due time, but that the 
scheme for a college specially for the train- 
ing of ministers should so soon have occupied 
the attention of the General Court was 
not improbably due to the Hutchinsonian 
controversy. 

Two explanations may be offered for Har- 
vard's decision in making his home on the 
Charlestown peninsula instead of in Boston. 
For several years the latter town had been 
growing in popularity with the settlers, and it 
may well have been a much simpler matter to 
secure adequate accommodation in Charles- 
town than in Boston. Again, Harvard would 
naturally locate himself in the district which 
promised to offer him a field in which to exer- 

269 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

cise his ministry, and he would speedily learn 
there was no prospect of an immediate open- 
ing on the Shawmut peninsula. What with 
Mrs. Hutchinson's efforts to have Wilson 
ousted and Wheelwright installed in his place 
as the associate of Cotton, Boston was suffer- 
ing from a plethora of ministers. Such was 
not the case at Charlestown. In fact, there 
was already a vacancy in the church there, for 
although the Rev. Zachariah Symmes held the 
position of pastor, no one had been elected to 
the office of teacher since the Rev. Thomas 
James had been dismissed because of some 
disagreement with his fellow minister. It 
should be remembered that in the early days 
most churches had two ministers, distin- 
guished as pastor and teacher respectively. 
The duty of the pastor was to "exhort and 
apply the precepts of Scripture to practice"; 
that of the teacher to "explain and defend the 
doctrines of Scripture." It was to the latter 
office in the Charlestown church that John 
Harvard was in due time appointed. 

As a necessary preliminary to such an ap- 
270 



THE NEW WORLD 

pointment, he first, with his wife, joined the 
full fellowship of the church. The date of 
their admission was November the 6th, 1637, 
when Harvard was drawing near to his thirti- 
eth birthday. In signing the church-roll, 
these two new members subscribed to the cov- 
enant and undertook to "solemnly and re- 
ligiously as in his most holy presence, promise 
and bind ourselves to walk in all our ways ac- 
cording to the rules of the Gospel, and in all 
sincere conformity to his holy ordinances ; and 
in mutual love and respect to each other: so 
near as God shall give us grace." Four days 
earlier, at the General Court held at New- 
town, which pronounced sentence of banish- 
ment on Wheelwright and Mrs. Hutchinson 
alike, John Harvard had been admitted a free- 
man of the colony. 

Some time during the closing months of 
1637, a lot of land was assigned to Harvard at 
Charlestown, whereon he no doubt speedily 
commenced the erection of that house in, which, 
some fifty years later. Judge Sewall lay awake 
so long musing over the providence which had 

271 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIDIES 

made such comfortable provision for his night's 
lodging. The fact that Harvard's allotment 
exceeded in area the plot granted to Mr. 
Symmes, seems indicative of the esteem his 
character inspired, an inference which is 
strengthened by the fact that in the April of 
the following year he was associated with a 
few of the principal men of Charlestown on a 
committee appointed to "consider something 
tending towards a body of laws." Harvard's 
library included several volumes relating to 
legal matters, and if it were possible to com- 
pare the Charlestown "body of laws" with 
those volumes it might not be difl&cult to indi- 
cate what part Harvard played on that com- 
mittee. 

Rude, indeed, was the temple in which Har- 
vard exercised his ministry at Charlestown as 
compared with the churches which would be 
uppermost in his memory. Than the stately 
fane of St. Mary's at Cambridge, and the 
noble gothic proportions of St. Saviour's 
Church, Southwark, no building could present 
a more striking contrast than the crude struc- 

272 




^v 



I 



f^^r- =:' 






%1 









m-. 



m^: 



/?=^ ^' <4^, 






COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY JOHN LA FARGE 



HAKVARD MEMORIAL WIXPOW, SAINT SAVIOUR'S CHURCH, SOUTHWARK. —Prtz/e 273. 



THE NEW WORLD 

ture where he was now a teacher of the Word. 
At first, several years prior to Harvard's ar- 
rival, the Sunday services at Charlestown were 
held beneath the shade of a spreading oak- 
tree, but, owing to the Governor's removal to 
Boston, it was not long ere "the Great House," 
which had been built for his use, became avail- 
able for church services, and it was in that 
building the Charlestown people listened to 
the voice of John Harvard. It stood on the 
west side of what is now City Square, and the 
house of the young minister was little more 
than a stone's throw distant. 

In 1637 the congregation would comprise 
some two hundred souls, all of whom, we may 
be sure, gave regular attendance at the two 
services which were commonly held every 
Sunday. The first service commenced at nine 
o'clock in the morning, or even earlier; the 
second being held in the afternoon soon after 
the mid-day meal. One important function 
of the afternoon gathering is depicted for us in 
this record of the pen of John Josselyn, who 

was in the country at the time of Harvard's 
18 273 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

ministry: "On Sundays in the afternoon 
when sermon is ended the people in the gal- 
leries come down and march two a-breast up 
one aisle and down the other, until they come 
before the desk, for pulpit they have none: 
before the desk is a long pew where the Elders 
and Deacons sit, one of them with a money 
box in his hand, into which the people as they 
pass put their offering, some a shilling, some 
two shillings, half a crown, five shillings, ac- 
cording to their ability and good will, after this 
they conclude with a Psalm." 

Absorbed first in the building of his house, 
and then in his preparations for the discharge 
of his duties as teacher. Harvard's few short 
months moved onwards to their close. Apart 
from his services on that committee which was 
charged with drafting a "body of laws," he 
does not appear to have taken any active part 
in the affairs of the young community. It 
may be that his health was now rapidly fail- 
ing, and that he felt he should reserve such 
little strength as he had for the discharge of 
his ministerial duties. 

274 



THE NEW WORLD 

There was one matter, however, in which 
he certainly took a keen interest, and that 
was the proposal for the establishment of a 
college. This had been under consideration 
some nine months before he landed in New 
England, for the records of the General 
Court, under date October 28th, 1636, include 
this entry: "The Court agreed to give ,£400 
towards a school or college, whereof <£200 to 
be paid the next year, and <£200 when the 
work is finished, and the next court to appoint 
where and what building." But the "next 
court" did not fulfil that obligation. No 
doubt the explanation may be sought in 
trouble with the Indians, religious controversy, 
and the pressure of more urgent business; but, 
whatever the cause, it should be noted that 
more than a year elapsed ere the college 
question again came before the General 
Court. Even then the record, under date 
November 15th, 1637, only states that "The 
college is ordered to be at Newtown." How- 
ever, now that the matter was revived it was 
not to be shelved any more, and consequently 

275 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

five days later the Court formally appointed 
a committee of the leading laymen and min- 
isters " to take order for a college at Newtown." 
Building operations were, no doubt, forth- 
with begun, and concurrently therewith Mr. 
Nathaniel Eaton was appointed first master. 
Unfortunately he seems to have been made 
treasurer as well, and that he availed him- 
self of the opportunity thus afforded him of 
exercising an early genius for "graft" seems 
only too probable. Whether that was so or 
not, it is interesting to note that the next 
entry in the colonial records was made on 
March 13th, 1639, and was in these terms: 
"It is ordered, that the college agreed upon 
formerly to be built at Cambridge shall be 
called Harvard College." Two events, then, 
had taken place. In honour of the university 
town of the majority of New England min- 
isters, the name of Newtown had been changed 
to Cambridge; and, in meet praise of one 
whose dying thought had turned to the in- 
fant seminary, that nameless school had re- 
ceived the title by which it was to become 

276 



THE NEW WORLD 

world famous. It was to matter little that 
no stone was upreared over the grave of the 
young minister to perpetuate the name of 
John Harvard; while that name was still 
freshly remembered, it was taken from the 
grave of its owner and rewritten on a memo- 
rial which no lichen-growth can efface or 
ravage of time destroy. 

It was as the year turned to the fall that 
John Harvard died. Having withstood the 
severity of one New England winter, he and 
his wife may have had good hopes that he 
would survive many more. But destiny had 
ordered it otherwise; and on September the 
14th, 1638, the last member of that Southwark 
home passed away. The probabilities are that 
death came so suddenly at last that no oppor- 
tunity offered for the preparation of a formal 
will; at any rate, no such document has sur- 
vived. Yet Harvard was able to make it 
perfectly clear to his wife and his friends that 
one-half of his estate, and the whole of his 
library, should be given to the new college at 
Cambridge, little knowing that that deatli- 

277 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

bed bequest was to have such momentous 
results. 

Some difference of opinion has been ex- 
pressed as to the actual money value of Har- 
vard's legacy. The chronicler of his death 
uses a phrase which may be interpreted as 
meaning that the total value of Harvard's 
estate was only some seven hundred pounds, 
but that it was greatly in excess of that amount 
must be obvious from the account given of 
that estate in the previous chapter. Un- 
doubtedly the weight of evidence is in favour 
of Harvard's property realising fully sixteen 
hundred pounds, and that being so the round 
figure of eight hundred pounds used by Win- 
throp may not unfaithfully represent the sum 
the young minister intended to give. Whether, 
however, through some unknown cause, the 
funds of the college benefited to that ex- 
tent seems doubtful. Nor does that affect 
the value or lessen the generosity of Har- 
vard's notable gift. If the sum were only 
four hundred pounds, he would still have 
made a bequest equal in value to the gift of 

278 



THE NEW WORLD 

the entire state as represented by the General 
Court. 

None of the records relating to Harvard's 
legacy make any reference to his widow. 
Perhaps that is not surprising when it is re- 
membered that she did not remain a widow 
for long. In little more than a year after 
Harvard's death, his place as teacher in the 
Charlestown church was filled by the ap- 
pointment of the Rev. Thomas Allen, who, 
not long after, espoused the widow of his 
predecessor. Naturally, then, the adminis- 
tration of Harvard's estate was placed in his 
hands, and it is he who figures in the records 
of the college as handing over various sums of 
money payable under Harvard's will. Nor, it 
seems, did the General Court lack at least the 
intention of requiting Mr. Allen's services. 
Among some old records in England is pre- 
served an extract from the minutes of the 
Boston General Court, which states that on 
May 22nd, 1668, the court granted "to Mr. 
Allen five hundred acres in regard of Mr. 
Harvard's gift." It is true that no confirma- 

279 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

tion of this gift is to be found in the Colonial 
Records, but the existence of the copy of the 
minute surely proves that the matter must have 
been before the General Court. Mr. Allen 
had returned to England sixteen years pre- 
viously, and although he had long completed 
his services in connection with Harvard's leg- 
acy, it is evident that their value had not been 
forgotten. Or, rather, perhaps this intended 
grant of land witnesses to the fact that the 
thirty years which had elapsed since Harvard's 
death had revealed to a new generation the 
real value of his generous gift. 



S80 



VIII 
THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 




[E HARVARD MONUMENT AT CHARLESTOWN UN THE SLii'Pv)SEi) SITE OE UlS 
GRAVE IN THE PHIPPS STREET BURYING GROUND. — Pw^re 283. 




CHAPTER VIII 
THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

AD the gift of perspective been 
granted in greater measure to the 
early historians of New England, 
we should not have to deplore the paucity of 
contemporary references to John Harvard. 
Even in the space of those fourteen months 
which were all that were allotted to him on 
American soil, he must have made the ac- 
quaintance of at least the leading ministers, 
if not the principal laymen, of the colony. 
Among the former were many who, like 
Harvard himself, were the sons of Emmanuel 
College, and that fact alone, in a strange land, 
would provide a strong bond of union. Cotton 
had been a fellow of Emmanuel, and as he was 
related to Anthony Tuckney by marriage, and 
had been associated with him in ministerial 
work in Old Boston, it is quite likely that 
Harvard bore a letter of introduction from 

283 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

his old tutor to the teacher of the Boston 
church. Yet Cotton, for all his voluminous 
writing, is dumb as to Harvard and his gen- 
erous help to the Cambridge college. 

Nor should it be forgotten that the Rev. 
Zachariah Symmes, with whom Harvard was 
associated in the oversight of the Charlestown 
church, was also a graduate of Emmanuel, 
and it might have been expected that he 
would have placed on record some account 
of the life of his colleague, especially in view 
of the service he had rendered to the young 
community in the cause of education. How 
willingly we would have spared the dreary 
sermons, and the still more dreary records 
of the theological hair-splitting of those times, 
for a few pages of incidents in Harvard's New 
England life! 

It is somewhat difiScult to decide which of 
the early references to Harvard should be 
given priority in point of time. No doubt 
the bald statement of Governor Winthrop 
to the effect that "Mr. Harvard gave to the 
college about j£800" must be placed first in 

284 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

the chronicle of Harvard's praise, for that 
entry appears to have been made by Winthrop 
prior to the year 1641; but it is so meagre 
in its particulars as makes its order in the 
story of little consequence. When, however, 
records richer in detail have to be considered, 
the contest for priority seems to rest between 
the "Autobiography" of Thomas Shepard 
and the early pamphlet entitled "New Eng- 
land's First Fruits." Shepard may have 
written his brief tribute to Harvard soon 
after his death, but as his "Autobiography" 
was not published for some years, the reference 
made by the writer of "New England's First 
Fruits" may justly be awarded pride of place 
in this connection. 

Those settlers in New England who were 
sturdy enough not to allow the minor incon- 
veniences of their surroundings to outweigh 
the primary advantage of religious freedom, 
were commendably zealous in advertising 
their felicity by means of letters to their friends 
in the old home. Some of those enthusiasts, 
as we have seen in the case of the exuberant 

285 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Higginson, rather overstepped the boundary 
of truth; but others, among whom the an- 
onymous author of "New England's First 
Fruits" must be included, gave a perfectly 
honest account of the real conditions of life 
in the new country. It appears that the 
narrative of the last-named writer took the 
form of a copious letter to some friends in 
England, and that it was penned in Boston 
on September 26th, 1642, or four years after 
Harvard's death. The person, or persons, 
to whom this epistle was addressed acted 
wisely in sending it to the press, and in that 
way it became possible for the London reader 
of 1643 to learn something of the generous 
legacy which had been made in New England 
by a Southwark man only five years earlier. 
Unfortunately, Thomas Harvard had not lived 
to see that early record of his brother's praise, 
but it is not improbable that friends and rela- 
tives of the family may have had this pamphlet 
brought under their notice. No doubt they 
would have found little to interest them in 
those pages which were devoted to an ac- 

£86 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

count of the conversion of some Indians in 
the vicinity of the settlement, but the follow- 
ing passage would bring back vividly to their 
memory that friend who sailed away to the 
New World only a few years before. 

"After God had carried us safe to New 
England," wrote this unknown historian, *'and 
we had builded our houses, provided neces- 
saries for our livelihood, reared convenient 
places for God's worship, and settled the 
civil government: one of the next things we 
longed for, and looked after was to advance 
Learning, and perpetuate it to posterity, 
dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to 
the churches, when our present ministers 
shall lie in the dust. And as we were think- 
ing and consulting how to effect this great 
work; it pleased God to stir up the heart 
of one Mr. Harvard (a godly gentleman 
and a lover of learning, there living amongst 
us) to give the one half of his estate (it being 
in all about £1700) towards the erecting of 
a college, and all his library: after him 
another gave .£300, others after them cast 

287 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

in more, and the public hand of the State 
added the rest: the college was, by common 
consent, appointed to be at Cambridge, a 
place very pleasant and accommodate, and 
is called (according to the name of the first 
founder) Harvard College." 

When a careful comparison is made between 
that narrative and the account given by 
Thomas Shepard, it would seem that 
the latter must have been committed to 
paper before the former. For it will be 
noticed that while the author of "New Eng- 
land's First Fruits" writes of the college as 
at Cambridge, and specially mentions why 
Harvard's name had been bestowed upon it, 
Shepard still keeps to the old name of New- 
town and makes no reference to the college 
under the title by which it has become so 
famous. Shepard's record, it will be ob- 
served, opens with a reminiscence of the 
Hutchinsonian controversy. 

"Thus the Lord," he gratefully notes, 
"having delivered the country from war 
with the Indians and Familists (who arose 

288 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

and fell together), he was pleased to direct 
the hearts of the magistrates (then keeping 
Court ordinarily in our town, because of 
these stirs at Boston), to think of erecting a 
school or college and that speedily to be a 
nursery of knowledge in these deserts and 
supply for posterity, and because this town 
(then called Newtown) was through God's 
great care and goodness kept spotless from 
the contagion of the opinions, therefore at 
the desire of some of our town the deputies 
of the Court having got Mr. Eaton to attend 
the school, the Court for that and sundry other 
reasons determined to erect the college here, 
which was no sooner done but the chief of the 
magistrates and elders sent to England to 
desire help to forward this work, but they 
all neglecting us (in a manner) the Lord 
put it into the heart of one Mr. Harvard, 
who died worth £1600, to give half of his 
estate to the erecting of the school. This 
man was a scholar and pious in his life and 
enlarged towards the country and the good 
of it in life and death, but no sooner was this 
19 289 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

given but Mr. Eaton did lavish out a great 
part of it." 

Although it is impossible to locate the exact 
date when Captain Edward Johnson, the 
somewhat discursive author of the "Wonder 
Working Providence of Zion's Saviour in New 
England," wrote his account of the founding 
of the college, its publication in London in 
1654 indicates that his narrative should be 
placed next in chronological order. Johnson's 
account, which occupies a place in his history 
under the date of 1638, is as meagre in its refer- 
ence to Harvard as those already cited. He 
appears to have been conscious of the defect, 
and valiantly tried to make amends by eking 
out his notice with a more than usually dis- 
tressing example of what with him did duty 
for poetry. 

"This year" (1638), Johnson wrote, "al- 
though the estates of these pilgrim people 
were much wasted, yet seeing the benefit that 
would accrue to the churches of Christ and 
civil government, by the Lord's blessing, upon 
learning, they began to erect a college, the 

290 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

Lord by his provident hand giving his appro- 
bation to the work, in sending over a faithful 
and godly servant of his, the reverend Mr. 
John Harvard, who joining with the people of 
Christ at Charlestown, suddenly after departed 
this life, and gave near a thousand pounds 
towards the work; wherefore the government 
thought it meet to call it Harvard College in 
remembrance of him. 

" If Harvard had with riches here been taken. 

He need not then through troublous seas have past. 
But Christ's bright glory hath thine eyes so waken. 

Nought can content, thy soul of him must tast : 
O tast and tell how sweet his saints among, 

Christ ravished hath thy heart with heavenly joys 
To preach and pray with tears affection strong, 

From heart's delight in him who thee employs. 
Scarce hast thou had Christ's Churches here in eye. 

But thou art call'd to eye him face to face ; 
Earth's scant contents death calls thee from, for why ? 

Full joy thou wouldst that 's only in heaven's place." 

Most of the early founders of New England 
laboured under the delusion that they could 
write poetry. Indeed, the first volume pub- 
lished in British America, the "Bay Psalm 
Book," was thought to be a volume of verse, 

291 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

although, it is true, the authors were candid 
enough to confess that what they had aimed 
at had been "fideHty rather than poetry." 
Perhaps their statement was unnecessary; 
few could possibly have suspected otherwise. 
And yet all the metrical productions of those 
days manifest such a sublime oblivion of the 
essential element of poetry, that even John- 
son's lines and Cotton's "elegies" may have 
passed for genuine products of the muse. 
Perhaps, under the circumstances, we should 
be grateful that so few of the New England 
poets selected John Harvard as the theme for 
their painful efforts, especially when it is re- 
membered that the following lines from the 
pen of the Rev. John Wilson undoubtedly 
reach the high- water mark of such efforts: 

" Your patron's voice my eager spirit hears — 
Nay ! spurn it not with dull and listless ears, 

He speaks. 
God, through the boundless mercy of his Son, 
Called to my spirit — sweetly led me on — 
Filled me with strength divine, and showed the way 
Which made life blessed to its latest day. 
That call I heeded : though unworthy still, 
I strove to do my heavenly Master's will ; 
292 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

Chosen of God to found, through grace divine. 

For Christian Learning an enduring shrine. 

Not that no spouse sustained my fainting head, 

Or loving children watched my dying bed ; — 

These I remembered, yet a half of all 

I gave to you who throng this sacred hall. 

The common weal, the glory of my God, 

The love of man — these lured me where I trod. 

Strong was my faith — 't was all I asked — that ye 

Would shine as lights of truth and piety. 

This hope, in life so blessed, adds a zest 

To the high pleasure of this heavenly rest. 

But if, degenerate, ye shall ever find 

Sloth dearer than the riches of the mind ; 

If losing virtue, nought is left beside 

A bloated ignorance, inflamed by pride ; 

If darling heresies delight afford, 

And ye deny your conscience and your Lord, 

How will ye spurn the path your founder trod — 

How tempt a covenant-keeping God ! 

Yet blend not thoughts like these with thoughts of me ; 

A better fortune seem these eyes to see. 

Nay ! Heaven itself could scarce suffice my heaxi;, 

If hope like this should languish and depaii;. 

Thus far our God each pure endeavour cheers. 

And will supply the strength of future years. 

Walk by his light. His wisdom and His will — 

He shall reveal a brighter glory still. 

And if, like David's — Peter's — from the way 

Of virtue any heedless foot shall stray. 

Yet if, like them, the wanderer shall repent, 

293 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

Our God doth pardon every penitent. 

To Him be glory ! to his glory, too, 

Do whatso'er your hands shall find to do. 

And as old Cambridge well deserved its name. 

May the new Cambridge win as pure a fame." 

To what date the above effusion should be 
assigned, is unknown; it appeared first in 
Cotton Mather's *'Magnalia," which was pub- 
lished in 1702. Wilson died in 1667, but his 
papers were placed in Mather's hands when 
he was in labour with his voluminous history, 
and that accounts for Wilson's poem making 
its first appearance under his auspices. Of 
course the monumental "Magnalia" has 
something to say about the founding of the 
college, but it was characteristic of the care- 
lessness of its author that he should have as- 
signed the grant of <£400 by the General Court 
to the year 1630 instead of to 1636. However, 
it may be placed to his credit that he realised 
the importance of Harvard's gift, for, after 
recording the vote of the General Court, he 
added: "But that which laid the most signifi- 
cant stone in the foundation, was the last will 
of Mr. John Harvard, a reverend and excel- 

294 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

lent minister of the gospel, who, dying at 
Charlestown of a consumption, quickly after 
his arrival here, bequeathed the sum of seven 
hundred, seventy-nine pounds, seventeen shill- 
ings and twopence towards the pious work of 
building a college, which was now set on foot. 
A committee then being chosen to prosecute 
the affair so happily commenced, it soon found 
encouragement from several other benefactors : 
the other colonies sent some small help to the 
undertaking, and several particular gentlemen 
did more than whole colonies to support and 
forward it: but because the memorable Mr. 
John Harvard led the way by a generosity ex- 
ceeding the most of them that followed, his 
name was justly aeternised, by its having the 
name of Harvard College imposed upon it." 

Before passing away from these early trib- 
utes to Harvard, one or two suggestions arising 
therefrom call for brief comment. It will not 
have escaped notice, for example, that Wil- 
son's verses credit Harvard with children as 
well as a wife. Those children were a figment 
of the poet's fancy. John Harvard had no 

295 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

children; indeed, with him, as has been hinted 
already, the family of Robert Harvard became 
extinct. His widow bore her second husband, 
the Rev. Thomas Allen, four daughters, of 
whom one at least was living when Mary Sad- 
ler, the mother of Harvard's wife, made her 
will in 1645, for that document specially men- 
tions the testator's "daughter Anne Allin and 
her daughter Mary." 

In other respects, the pious and orthodox 
sentiments which Wilson places in the mouth 
of Harvard probably do little violence to his 
character or opinions, and that being so it may 
be doubted whether the original benefactor of 
the college would be altogether satisfied with 
its later theological developments. Unless, 
indeed, the spirits of the just may be supposed 
to advance pari passu with the trend of reli- 
gious thought in this mundane world. 

Unfortunately, the records quoted above are 
not of material service in enabling us to reach 
a final decision as to the exact amount of Har- 
vard's bequest. No fewer than five different 
sums are named, but three out of those totals 

296 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

approach sufficiently near to the specific 
amount named by Cotton Mather as to make it 
probable that his statement may, for once, be 
relied upon. The fact that he is so detailed 
as to include the "twopence" makes it practi- 
cally certain that he derived his information 
from the old records of the college, where Har- 
vard's legacy is stated in the exact figures of 
seven hundred and seventy- nine pounds, sev- 
enteen shillings, and twopence. So far as 
those records go, however, a sum of a little 
less than four hundred pounds was all that the 
college authorites received. As Harvard's real 
estate was situated in England, some time 
would elapse ere everything could be realised, 
and, considering the condition of England at 
the time, it is not surprising to learn that even 
by December, 1643, the "accounts of Mr. Har- 
vard's gift" had not been finally settled. As, 
however, the statement in the college records 
quoted above was entered long subsequent to 
1643, it seems only reasonable to conclude that 
the sum mentioned therein represented the ex- 
act half of the total proceeds of Harvard's es 

297 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

tate at the final settlement, and full credit is 
due to him for that amount, no matter what 
ill chance may have prevented some of it from 
reaching the college treasury. Nor, in esti- 
mating the generosity of that gift, should we 
forget to once more multiply those seventeenth- 
century figures by eight, in order that the 
modern mind may arrive at an adequate 
conception of the relative value of Harvard's 
legacy. 

That, half a century after his death, the peo- 
ple of New England had learnt to appreciate the 
action of the young minister at its real value* is 
obvious. By that time Harvard College had en- 
tered in good earnest on its triumphant career 
as the centre of learning in America, and the 
name of its earliest benefactor had already gath- 
ered around it the beginnings of that honour 
in which it was to be more securely enshrined 
in the thought of later generations. Nowhere, 
perhaps, does that reverence find more attrac- 
tive record than in this page from the diary of 
Judge Sewall, which is dated January, 1696: 
"I lodged at Charlestown at Mrs. Shepherd's, 

298 




TLE-PAGE OF "THE CHRISTIAN WARFARE." PRESERVED IN THE LIBRARY 
OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. — P«(/f 299. 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

who tells me Mr. Harvard built that house. I 
lay in the chamber next the street. As I lay 
awake past midnight, in my meditation, I was 
affected to consider how long ago God had 
made provision for my comfortable lodging 
that night; seeing that was Mr. Harvard's 
house." 

Remorseless, indeed, has been the oblivion 
which has overtaken and utterly effaced every 
record of the footsteps of John Harvard on 
American soil. Even that house in which 
Judge Sewall spent such a comfortable night 
has shared in the general fate, for there is no 
record of its existence subsequent to the con- 
flagration of June 17th, 1775. Eleven years 
earlier, too, the same devouring element had 
reduced to ashes all the books of John Har- 
vard's carefully gathered library, save one 
volume, which seems to have owed its escape 
to having been in the hands of a borrower on 
that wild January night when Harvard Hall 
was obliterated by the flames. Hence that 
one book, a portly Puritan folio entitled 
"Christian Warfare," is the only actual relic 

299 



JOHN HARVAUD AND HIS TIMES 

of the young minister which survives in New 
England. 

Although the general Court of the Bay State 
has often been eloquently and worthily eulo- 
gised for its grant of <£400 on October 28th, 
1636, it seems necessary in the interests of ac- 
curacy to point out that no record exists of that 
sum ever having been paid into the college 
funds. The accounts appear to show that so 
far as the original grant is concerned, there is 
still a balance of £350 due to the college, which, 
perhaps, it may be too late in the day to claim! 
Moreover, the General Court appears to have 
been so short of ready cash in those days that it 
actually borrowed nearly two hundred pounds 
from Harvard's legacy. These facts enable us 
the better to appraise that legacy at its real 
worth. If ever there was a case which illus- 
trated conclusively the truth of his dat qui cito 
dat, this was one. The idea of the college was 
in the air, no doubt; nay, more, it existed on 
the records of the General Court; but some- 
thing seemed lacking to resolve the idea into 
visible form. That something John Harvard 

300 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVAKD 

supplied. He, indeed, "led the way"; his 
was the example of practical help which served 
the vital function of stimulating the liberality 
of others. Adequately, then, did he earn the 
honour of being canonised as the *' principal 
founder" of the university whieh bears his 
name. 

And yet, such is the indifference with which 
we regard our greatest benefactors, nearly two 
hundred years were allowed to pass away 
ere the first effort was made to pay any spe- 
cific tribute to the memory of John Harvard. 
The honour of heading the movement which 
effected that tardy reparation belongs to Ed- 
ward Everett, one of Harvard's best-known 
sons. At his instigation, during a social gath- 
ering of some fellow-graduates held under the 
roof of Dr. George Parkman, in Boston, a dis- 
cussion arose as to the desirability of erecting 
a monument to the memory of John Harvard, 
and the idea was so warmly approved that a 
committee to further its execution was at once 
formed. A few days later, a letter was ad- 
dressed to the alumni of the university, stating 

301 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

that it was proposed to erect a suitable monu- 
ment in the Charlestown burial ground, and 
notifying that the subscription was limited to 
one dollar from each individual. "In our an- 
cient and venerable University," this letter 
remarked, *'a most illustrious, and, we trust, 
imperishable monument has been reared to his 
memory. But it has appeared to many of the 
children of our alma matery that a common re- 
spect towards the name of a public benefactor 
suggests the propriety of marking out, by a 
suitable memorial, the spot where his mortal 
remains are deposited. It seems unbecoming 
that the stranger, who inquires for such a me- 
morial of the earliest benefactor of the cause 
of education in the country, should be told 
that none such has been raised." 

So liberal and ready was the response to 
this appeal, that on September 26th, 1828, a 
solid obelisk of American granite stood on the 
summit of burial- hill, Charlestown, awaiting 
unveiling. That this monument, however, 
marks the exact spot where John Harvard's 
body was laid to rest seems improbable. Tra- 

302 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

dition alone remained as a guide in that mat- 
ter ; and altogether it seems true that, as Oliver 
Wendell Holmes stated in his poem at the cele- 
bration of 1886, 

" In vain the delving antiquary tries 
To find the tomb where generous Harvard has." 

As was most appropriate, the address at the 
unveiling ceremony of September 26th, 1828, 
was delivered by Edward Everett. It had 
been expected that President John Quincy 
Adams would have taken part in the ceremony, 
but, having to leave Boston unexpectedly, his 
sympathy with the event was expressed in a 
notable letter instead of by the living voice. 
In that letter, after commenting on the religious 
character of the New England settlement, 
President Adams said : " Harvard was himself 
a clergyman. Possessed of a fortune compe- 
tent to a comfortable subsistence in his native 
country, his emigration could have been dic- 
tated only by principles of moral and religious 
duty. But these motives were common to the 
great mass of the first settlers, whose sincerity 
had been tested by greater sacrifices and suffer- 

303 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

ings than appear to have been required or en- 
dured by him. He probably was not involved 
in those vehement religious controversies upon 
questions unintelligible to us and to them, but 
upon which they wasted their understanding 
and their affections. He was not distin- 
guished among- the divines of the age as a dis- 
putant. He took a less beaten path to the 
veneration of after times, and a shorter road 
to heaven." 

Although little was known about John Har- 
vard at the time the Charlestown monument 
was erected, Mr. Everett marked with unerring 
intuition wherein he had rendered the com- 
munity his best service, for he saw that "but 
for his generosity" the project for the erection 
of a college might have been delayed many 
years. Many passages in Mr. Everett's ad- 
dress have been rendered obsolete by the fuller 
knowledge we now possess, but the following 
sentences are as timely to-day as when they 
were first spoken: 

" And now let no man deride our labour, how- 
ever humble, as insignificant or useless. With 

304 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

what interest should we not gaze upon this 
simple and unpretending shaft, had it been 
erected at the decease of him whom it com- 
memorates, and did we now behold it gray with 
the moss and beaten with the storms of two 
centuries! In a few years, we, who now per- 
form this duty of filial observance, shall be as 
those who are resting beneath us; but our 
children and our children's children, to the 
latest generation, will prize this simple memo- 
rial, first and chiefly for the sake of the hon- 
oured name which is graven on its face, but 
with an added feeling of kind remembrance of 
those who have united to pay this debt of 
gratitude. 

" When we think of the mighty importance 
in our community of the system of public in- 
struction, and regard the venerable man whom 
we commemorate as the first to set the exam- 
ple of contributing liberally for the endowment 
of places of education (an example faithfully 
imitated in this region, in almost every suc- 
ceeding age), we cannot, as patriots, admit 
that any honour which it is in our power to pay 
20 305 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

to his memory, is beyond his desert. If we 
further dwell on our own obligation, and con- 
sider that we ourselves have drunk of the 
streams that have flowed from this sacred well, 
— that in the long connection of cause and 
effect, which binds the generations of men in- 
dissolubly to each other, it is perhaps owing 
to his liberality that we have enjoyed the ad- 
vantages of a public education, — we shall 
surely feel, as students, that the poor tribute 
we have united to render to his memory falls 
infinitely below the measure either of his merit 
or of our obligation. 

"But, humble as they are, let these acts of 
acknowledgment impress on our bosoms a just 
estimate of desert. Of all the first fathers of 
New England, the wise and provident rulers, 
the grave magistrates, the valiant captains, — 
those who counselled the people in peace, and 
led them in war, — the gratitude of this late 
posterity has first sought out the spot where 
this transient stranger was laid to rest, scarce 
a year after his arrival in America. It is not 
that we are insensible to the worth of their 

306 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

characters, nor that we are ungrateful for their 
services. But it was given to the venerated 
man whom we commemorate this day to strike 
the keynote in the character of this people — 
first to perceive with a prophet's foresight, and 
to promote Viui a princely liberality, consid- 
ering his means, that connection between pri- 
vate munificence and public education, which, 
well understood and pursued by others, has 
given to New England no small proportion of 
her name and praise in the land. What is 
there to distinguish our community so honour- 
ably as its establishments for general educa- 
tion, — beginning with its public schools, sup- 
ported wholly by V e people, and continued 
through the higher institutions, in whose en- 
dowment public and private liberality has gone 
hand in hand ? What so eminently reflects credit 
upon us, and gives to our places of education 
a character not possessed by those of many 
other communities, as the number and liberal- 
ity of the private benefactions which have been 
made to them.^ The excellent practice of 
liberal giving has obtained a currency here, 

307 



JOHN HAKVARD AND HIS TIMES 

which, if I mistake not, it possesses in few 
other places. Men give not merely from their 
abundance but from their competence; and 
following the great example, which we now 
celebrate, of John Harvard, who gave half his 
fortune and all his books, it is no uncommon 
thing for men to devote a very considerable 
portion of estates not passing the bounds of 
moderation, to the endowment of public 
institutions. 

"And well does the example of Harvard 
teach us, that what is thus given away is in 
reality the portion best saved and longest 
kept. In the public trusts to which it is con- 
fided, it is safe, as far as anything human 
is safe, from the vicissitudes to which all else 
is subject. Here, neither private extrava- 
gance can squander, nor personal necessity 
exhaust it. Here it will not perish with the 
poor clay to whose natural wants it would 
else have been appropriated. Here, uncon- 
sumed itself, it will feed the hunger of the 
mind, — the only thing on earth that never 
dies, — and endure, and do good for ages, 

308 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

after the donor himself has ceased to live, 
in aught but his benefactions." 

Eight years later, on September 8th, 1836, 
the two hundredth anniversary of the founda- 
tion of Harvard University was celebrated with 
considerable pomp and ceremony, the pro- 
ceedings of the day being held in a spacious 
pavilion in the grounds, specially erected for 
the occasion. At the banquet, no fewer than 
forty sentiments were presented, the second 
of which, honoured by the entire company up- 
standing, was in these terms: "The sacred 
memory of John Harvard, who set the first 
example, on the American continent, of a union 
between private munificence and public edu- 
cation, which has bound successive genera- 
tions, as with links of steel, together, and has 
given to an unknown stranger a deathless 
name." Apart from that toast, which was 
neither prefaced nor followed by any special 
address, an examination of the numerous 
speeches at the banquet reveals the surprising 
fact that practically no references were made 
to the "principal founder" of the university. 

309 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

It seems, also, that no invitation to the cele- 
bration had been addressed to John Harvard's 
old college of Emmanuel. At any rate, no 
representative was present from the English 
Cambridge. That university, however, was 
not entirely overlooked, for Judge Story, at the 
close of a speech recounting the obligations of 
New England to the scholars and ministers 
who took part in the early settlement, toasted, 
*' Our Ancient Mother, the University of Cam- 
bridge in old England. Salve, magna Parens, 
— Magna Virum/' 

Wlien, nearly half a century later, the ter- 
centenary of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 
was duly celebrated, the praise of John Har- 
vard did not lack adequate utterance. In 
connection with that event, the chapel of the 
college was thoroughly renovated, and it was 
as a part of that scheme that the Harvard win- 
dow was placed in that building. The first 
invitation to the proceedings, which took place 
on June 19th and 20th, 1884, was addressed to 
the authorities of Harvard University, and in 
cordial and prompt reply Professor Charles 

310 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

Eliot Norton was delegated to represent the 
university on the occasion. Another illustri- 
ous son of Harvard was also present in the 
person of James Russell Lowell, then occupy- 
ing with such brilliant success the position of 
American Ambassador in England. 

In the speeches on that occasion many 
references were made to the enviable position 
Emmanuel occupied as "a mother of Univer- 
sities," and alike at the banquet on the first 
day and at the luncheon on the day following, 
no toast was received with greater cordiality 
than that of "Prosperity to Harvard College." 
On each occasion, of course, the duty of reply- 
ing fell to Professor Norton, and although he 
dwelt to some extent upon the achievements 
in New England which other scholars of Em- 
manuel had placed to their credit, he naturally 
gave most prominence to the name of John 
Harvard. After relating the few facts which 
were all that were then known of his history, 
he added: "We see him now as one of the 
Great-hearts of his generation whom England 
begot, Cambridge bred, and Emmanuel in 

311 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

special nurtured; men who went forth from 
here full of the faith which gives steadiness to 
high resolve, rich in the culture which invig- 
orates as well as refines, and strong in a cour- 
age which no perils could daunt because its 
source was in the Rock of Ages, — men who 
went forth to cross the vast and solitary sea, 
and in the wilderness on its further shore to lay 
the little stones which were to prove the more 
than Cyclopean foundations of an unparal- 
leled commonwealth, not unworthy to be called 
by the great name of New England." 

Ere the year which had marked the placing of 
a window in Emmanuel chapel to the memory 
of John Harvard had ended, that suggestive 
statue which stands on the Delta in the grounds 
of Harvard University was unveiled to public 
gaze. This memorial was the generous gift 
of an alumnus of the university, Samuel J. 
Bridge, whose Charlestown pastor, the Rev. 
George E. Ellis, D.D., was deputed to deliver 
the address at the unveiling ceremony on Oc- 
tober 15th, 1884. 

"Reverence, love, gratitude, and honour," 
312 




ATUE OF JOHN HARVARD ON THE DELTA, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. — Pa^e 312. 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

Dr. Ellis remarked in the course of his ad- 
dress, "have combined to enlist genius in 
their service, that there may be a personal 
memorial of Harvard on these grounds, 
which his living feet, doubtless, often trod. 
There is not known to be extant a portrait 
or any delineation or description of his per- 
sonality, his form, or features. Is not the 
prompting, however, fair and allowable, that 
there should be some artistic memorial of him 
on these grounds ? Let it be distinctly and 
frankly avowed, for record on this precise day 
of the unveiling of a statue as a simulacrum 
of John Harvard, — so that only wilful error, 
or a fond, mythical invention can ever mis- 
lead or falsify a generous and grateful prompt- 
ing, — that this exquisite moulding in bronze 
serves a purpose for the eye, the thought, and 
sentiment, through the ideal, in lack of the real. 
... It shows us a young scholar in the aca- 
demic costume and garb of his time, with the 
refinement and gravity of pure high- thinking. 
Gently touched by the weakness which was 
wasting his immature life, he rests for a mo- 

313 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

ment from his converse with the wisdom on the 
printed page, and raises his contemplative eyes 
to the spaces of all wisdom. The seal of his 
English college is on the left of the pedestal, 
and that which was so felicitously seized upon 
for the college to which he transferred learning 
from the Old World to the New, is on the right. 
Let this memorial be richly garlanded with 
summer flowers on your high class days! Let 
the pensive beauty of that sweet countenance 
be cheer and inspiration to the student passing 
by it, under fair, or clouded, or stormy skies, 
or by the illumination of the moon!" 

In accepting the custody of the statue on be- 
half of the university, President Charles Wil- 
liam Eliot epitomised in few but felicitous 
words the most outstanding lessons of Har- 
vard's life: "The University counts of ines- 
timable worth the lessons which this pure, 
gentle, resolute youth will teach, as he sits in 
bronze looking wistfully into the western sky. 
He will teach that one disinterested deed of 
hope and faith may crown a brief and broken 
life with deathless fame. He will teach that 

314 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

the good which men do lives after them, fruc- 
tified and multiplied beyond all power of meas- 
urement or computation. He will teach that 
from the seed which he planted in loneliness, 
weakness, and sorrow, have sprung joy, 
strength, and energy ever fresh, blooming year 
after year in this garden of learning, and 
flourishing more and more, as time goes on, 
in all fields of human activity." 

Two graceful tributes to the memory of John 
Harvard adorn the record of the celebration of 
the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 
foundation of the university. On that occa- 
sion the proceedings extended over four days, 
from the 5th to the 8th of November, 1886; 
and they were rendered memorable by the de- 
livery of Lowell's historic oration. Strangely 
enough, however, he made no more than a 
passing reference to "the gentle and godly 
youth from whom we took our name, — him- 
self scarce more than a name." All too few, 
also, were the words in which Robert C. Win- 
throp, a descendant of the Governor Winthrop 
whom Harvard knew, spoke of the "young 

315 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

graduate of Emmanuel" who had won so un- 
consciously such an enduring fame. There 
was not, he said, "any other name in all the 
annals of literature and learning so sure to 
hold its place in the grateful and affectionate 
remembrance of generation after generation 
to the last syllable of recorded time." 

At this celebration, John Harvard's college 
of Emmanuel was worthily represented by 
Mandell Creighton, the historian and bishop 
whose premature death inflicted such a griev- 
ous loss on the world of learning. Possessing, 
as he did, the historic faculty, it was natural 
that his thoughts should turn chiefly to the 
figure of John Harvard. "To me," he said, 
"the solitary figure of the unknown scholar, 
from whom you take your name, has a special 
significance through its very indistinctness. 
To some it is given to work out their ideas 
through a long course of intellectual produc- 
tion or public service; others can only express 
themselves in some one decisive act. We 
know enough of John Harvard's character to 
justify our admiration; we know that he was 

316 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

devoted to the spread of learning and the pro- 
motion of the public welfare. His munificence 
was applied to further the object of popular 
aspiration. What the scanty revenues of the 
country could scarcely compass was accom- 
plished by the example which his hopefulness 
set forth. He was at once a scholar, a states- 
man, a philanthropist; a man whom Emman- 
uel may be proud to have trained, and Harvard 
may be proud to recognise as her founder. It 
matters not that John Harvard cannot be 
shown to have been a man of social or intellec- 
tual distinction. It may be that John Har- 
vard's teachers shook their heads sadly over 
an awkward lad who sat silent in their lecture- 
rooms; but the name of John Harvard's 
teachers are, I fear, forgotten, while John 
Harvard's name lives and is venerated to-day, 
and, judging from to-day's enthusiasm, is likely 
to live through the long future of this great 
University. For John Harvard learned a les- 
son beyond what his teachers could impart; 
his fine sense caught the spirit of the institu- 
tion which had inspired his intellectual life, 

317 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

and with the strength of that spirit he could 
inspire others." 

Although the twentieth century has not 
reached its first decade, it has already wit- 
nessed the erection of two memorials in John 
Harvard's honour. The first of these, the gift 
of Harvard alumni, takes the form of a memo- 
rial brass, which was placed in the chapel of 
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, on August 
25th, 1904. The tablet bears that it is to per- 
petuate the gratitude of Harvard men "to 
their founder in the college which fostered his 
beneficent spirit." The other memorial is a 
stained-glass window of rare beauty, which, 
owing to the generosity of Ambassador Joseph 
H. Choate, now adorns the Lady Chapel of St. 
Saviour's Church, Southwark, where Harvard 
was baptised. The donor himself unveiled the 
window on May 22nd, 1905, and in his brief 
address he noted how " the name of John Har- 
vard, unknown and of little account when he 
left England, has been a benediction to the 
New World, and his timely and generous act 
has borne fruit a millionfold." 

318 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HARVARD 

What other tributes to the praise of John 
Harvard this and other centuries shall see, no 
prophet can foretell. Perhaps that peaceful 
English village church in which he was mar- 
ried may some day be able to treasure its ap- 
propriate memorial. Nor, although their vir- 
tues may never be recorded on stone or brass, 
should we forget to stem back the waters of 
Lethe from the names of Harvard's parents 
and brother. It was to the arduous industry 
of Robert Harvard, to the motherly economy 
of Katherine Yearwood, and to the generosity 
of his brother, that John Harvard was indebted 
for the power to achieve his great work in the 
New World. Something of the affectionate 
honour which has gathered around his name 
belongs of right to them, too. 

How it would have soothed the death-bed of 
the young minister could he have foreseen 
whereunto that last generous deed of his life 
would tend! It was in a strange land he 
passed away. The few months he had spent 
therein cannot have wholly transferred his 
affections to the soil of New England. That 

319 



JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES 

other England, as we know it did with many 
of the pilgrims, pulled at his heart in his hours 
of depression; and perhaps in his last days he 
asked to be placed at the window of his death- 
chamber that he might gaze wistfully over the 
wide waters towards that "precious stone set 
in the silver sea." It is not improbable that 
the rough conditions of life in the New World 
may have had much to do with Harvard's 
early death; but that sacrifice, and all the 
pathos of loneliness, would have been far out- 
weighed in his thoughts could he only have 
known. 

Around John Harvard in New England as 
he lay on his death-bed, were many ministers 
whose names, he must have thought, were des- 
tined to achieve a far greater and more endur- 
ing fame than his own, little dreaming that 
such of them as would be remembered would 
owe their renown to some casual mention of 
his own name. And of the others, how could 
he foresee that their painfully written tomes 
of evanescent theology would, in a few gener- 
ations, be scornfully cast as dust to the void ? 

320 



THE PRAISE OF JOHN HAKVARD 

In that other England, too, he knew he had 
left men, students at Emmanuel with himself, 
whose names were to be carved deeply in the 
history of his native land; who, in the Senate, 
at the Court, and in the Church, would infal- 
libly rise to high places and be accounted 
leaders in the nation's life. Yet, while even 
the irreatest of these are known to few save the 
diligent student of history, while their Court 
honours have turned to dust and their achieve- 
ments are lost in oblivion, the dying inspira- 
tion of John Harvard has given him an 
immortality which gathers brighter radiance 
with every passing generation. 



321 



^ 



INDEX 



BBOT, Archbishop, 22. 
dams, John Quincy, 303. 
insworth, Henry, 229, 230. 
lien act, the, 260, 269. 
Hen, Anne, 296. 
Hen, Mary, 296. 
lien. Rev. Thomas, 279, 280, 
296. 

Uen, Mrs. Thomas. See Har- 
vard, Mrs. John. 
llin, Anne. See Allen, Anne. 
llin, Mary. See Allen, Mary. 
11 Saints Barking, 129, 202, 205, 
207, 214, 215. 

mes. Dr. William, 216, 223, 225, 
227, 228. 
msterdam, 229. 

ndrewes. Dr. Lancelot, 105, 106, 
107, 108, 109. 

Annotations on the Pentateuch," 
Ainsworth's, 229. 
ntinomianism, 265. 
pologia, Shepard's, 237. 
quinas, Thomas, 228. 
rminianism, 181. 
xticles of Religion, the, 140-142, 
194. 
.ugustine, 228. 



Iacon's Essays, 232. 
iankside, 56, 67, 68, 71, 102. 
laro, Peter, 159. 
•attle, the Abbot of, 56. 
Bay Psalm Book," the, 291. 



Bear Garden, Southwark, 68. 
Bellarraine, 227. 
" Bellarminus Enervatus," 227. 
Bible, the, 4, 91 ; its influence on 

John Harvard, 111-116. 
Bingham, John, 73. 
Bishopsgate St., London, 158. 
Blackfriars, 98. 
Blue Hills, the, 259. 
Books, the scarcity of, 217-226. 
Boston, 10, 180, 258, 260, 261, 

264, 265, 266, 269, 270, 273, 

286, 289, 301, 303. 
Boston, Old, 240, 283. 
Boswell, Su- Wilham, 222, 223. 
Bowmer, Richard, 204. 
Bowmer, Rose, 204. 
Bridge, Samuel J., 312. 
Broughton, Hugh, 229. 
Browne, Rev. Robert, 9. 
Browning, 231. 
Brownists, the, 9. 
Buchanan, George, 10. 
Buckingham, the Duke of, 27, 

178. 
Bull Inn, the, 158. 
Burton, Rev. Henry, 44. 



162, 



Caitjs College, Cambridge, 

166. 
Cah-in, 99, 110, 111, 196, 228, 

248. 
Cahinism, 110, 180, 191. 
Cambridge, England, its Puritan 

323 



INDEX 



tendencies, 137-144 ; its morals 
at Harvard's time, 144-148 ; its 
appearance in 1627, 159-161; 
19, 70, 133, 152, 153, 157, 158, 
168, 169, 173, 175, 176, 178, 
185, 194, 195, 199, 201, 239, 241 
310, 311. See also Emmanuel 
College, Cambridge. 

Cambridge, Mass., synod at, 263, 
266, 268, 271 ; church at, 267 ; 
establishment of college at, 
275-276, 288, 289. 

Cambridge, the Vice-Chancellor 
of, 140. 

Canterbury, 24, 25, 55, 190. 

Canterbury, the Archbishop of, 
218. 

Canterbiu-y pilgrims, the, 55. 

Carlyle, 20. 

Catholic revival, the, 3. 

CathoUcism, 6. 

Catholics, 9, 10, 98. 

Cellini, Benvenuto, 57. 

Chaderton, the elder, 151. 

Chaderton, Lawrence, 150, 151, 
152, 154, 156, 178. 

Chambers, 179. 

Charles I., 13, 17, 18, 22, 45, 99, 
146, 173, 174, 182, 183, 184, 
185, 191, 193, 217, 238, 241, 246. 

Charlestown, Mass., Harvard be- 
comes a townsman of, 249, 260, 
269, 270; Harvard's life in, 
270-274; 243, 271, 279, 284, 
291, 295, 298, 302, 304. 

Chaucer, 55. 

Chichester, 188. 

Choate, Joseph H., 318. 

' ' Christian Warfare," 299. 

Christ's College, Cambridge, 161, 
162. 



Chrysostom, 233. 

Church of England, the, 8, 9, 10, 
15, 21, 28, 44, 45, 105, 138, 139, 
143, 152, 154. 

City Square, Charlestown, 273. 

Cleveland, 161. 

Clmton, Theophilus, 180, 239. 

Clothworkers Company pf Lon- 
don, the, 206. 

Coleridge, 20. 

Colonial Papers of Great Britain, 
the, 250. 

Colonial Records, the, 280. 

Commencement House, Cam- 
bridge, 195. 

" Comus," 69. 

Cotton, Rev. John, 27, 179, 196, 
228, 237, 238, 240, 264, 265, 
270, 283, 284. 

Council of New England, the, 
250. 

Council of State, the, 187. 

Cox, William, 131. 

Crawshaw, 162. 

Creighton, Mandell, 316. 

Cromwell, 182, 192. 

Cudworth, Ralph, 162, 189, 190. 

" Defence of Poesie," Sidney's, 4. 
Dell, William, 185. 
Denham, Sir John, 233. 
Destyn, Barbara, her marriage to 

Robert Harvard, 58 ; her death, 

59. 
D'Ewes, Simon, 147, 175, 176, 

195. 
" Divine Emblems," Quarks', 

232. 
" Divine Tragedy," Prynne's, 44. 
Dorchester, the Marquis of. See 

Pierrepont, Henry. 



324 



INDEX 



Drury, Father, 98, 99. 
Dudley, Thomas, 239, 240. 
Duessa, 6, 7. 

Eastcheap, 45. 

East Smithfield, 129. 

Eaton, Nathaniel, 276, 289, 290. 

Eliot, Charles William, 314. 

EUot, John, 18, 19. 

Elizabeth, 3, 6, 8, 10, 138, 150, 
238. 

EUetson, Jolm, married to Kath- 
erine Harvard, 128; his death, 
128 ; his will, 128-129, 202, 205. 

Elletson, Katherine. See Har- 
vard, Mrs. Robert. 

Ellis, Rev. George E., 312, 313. 

Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 
Harvard decides to attend, 131 ; 
Harvard enters, 137; its con- 
ditions at Harvard's time, 148- 
155; 168-177; customs at, 
163-164; influence of Preston 
upon, 178-180; notable stu- 
dents attending at Harvard's 
time, 181-193 ; Harvard leaves, 
194-196; mentioned, 19, 129, 
130, 144, 156, 162, 200, 209, 
239, 240, 241, 283, 284, 310, 
311, 312, 316, 318, 321. 

England, 3, 9, 13, 15, 17, 19, 46, 
53, 56, 96, 97, 112, 128, 201, 
221, 223, 225, 242, 245, 246, 
247, 256, 259, 280, 286, 289, 
297, 311. 

English Clironicles, the, 34. 

Eton, 90. 

Eton edition of Chrysostom, the, 
233. 

Europe, 53, 54. 

Everett, Edward, 301, 303, 304. 



"Faerie Queene," the, 5-7, 

232. 
Fidessea, 7. 
Field, Nathan, 103. 
Fontainebleau, 228. 
FrankUn, Gregory, 204. 
Fraiis Honesta, 174. 
Frogmore, 210. 
Froude, 110. 
Fuller, 151, 152, 156, 161, 179. 

General Coiui, the, 268, 269, 
271, 275, 279, 280, 289, 294, 
300. 

Geneva Bible, the, 91, 115. 

Gibbon, 110. 

Globe Theatre, the, 41, 58, 66, 
68, 71, 72, 73, 101, 102. 

Godstone, 203. 

Gower, John, 108. 

Gravesend, 252. 

Great Charter, the, 16. 

Great Protestation, the, 16, 98. 

R\gtje, the, 222. 

Hampden, John, 247. 

Harvard, various spellings of 
name, 50. 

Harvard, John, his environment, 
32-46 ; his birth, 81 ; his school- 
days, 88-93; his hoUdays, 94- 
96 ; influence of religion upon, 
107-116; his home Hfe, 119- 
121 ; death of father, 126 ; be- 
quest from father, 126-127 ; de- 
cides upon the ministry, 130; 
chooses Emmanuel College, 
Cambridge 131 ; enters Emman- 
uel College,137 ; probable influ- 
ence of Chaderton, 156-157 : his 
journey to Cambridge, 157-159 ; 



325 



INDEX 



his possible acquaintance with 
Milton, 162-163; his life at 
Emmanuel College, 163-194, 
199-200; his college contem- 
poraries, 181-193; meets Ann 
Sadler, 194 ; fleaves Cambridge, 
194-196; returns home, 199- 
201; death of mother, 200- 
201 ; bequest from mother, 
201-205; his property affairs, 
205-207, 215; his courtship, 
207-212; his marriage to Ann 
Sadler, 213; bequest from 
brother, 214, 257; his Ubrary, 
216-234; influenced to go to 
America, 238-248; his jour- 
ney to New England, 248-258 ; 
his arrival in Boston, 258-260; 
finds religious dissension, 261- 
269; becomes teacher in 
Charlestown church, 270-271; 
admitted freeman of colony, 
271 ; his hfe in Charlestown, 
271-274; interested in estab- 
Ushment of college, 275; his 
name given college, 276; his 
death, 277; bequest to Har- 
vard College, 277-280; 296- 
298; paucity of contempo- 
rary references to, 283-295 ; 
his lack of children, 295-296; 
his personal record effaced, 
299-301 ; first movement for 
memorial to, 301-304; Ever- 
ett's address at unveihng of 
monument to, 304-309; later 
honors paid to, 309-321 ; men- 
tioned, 10, 12, 19, 20, 85, 87, 
97, 98, 100, 104, 126, 128, 129, 
133, 139, 141, 142, 147, 149, 
163, 299. 



Harvard, Mrs. John, her mar- 
riage, 213; joins church at 
Charlestown, 271; death of 
husband, 277; her marriage 
to Rev. Thomas Allen, 279; 
255, 260, 296. See also Sad- 
ler, Ann. 

Harvard, Katherine, (mother of 
John Harvard). See Harvard, 
Mrs. Robert. 

Harvard, Katherine (sister of 
John Harvard), 87, 120, 126. 

Harvard, Mary, 58, 87, 120, 125. 

Harvard, Peter, 87, 120, 126. 

Harvard, Robert, his early hfe a 
blank, 49; his legacy from 
Peter Medcalfe, 50-51 ; known 
as " Robert Harvey," 50-51 ; 
his start in trade, 52-57; his 
marriage to Barbara Destyn, 
58; his children by his first 
wife, 58; his first wife's death, 
59; his marriage to Katherine 
Rogers, 59-60, 79-80; possi- 
bly introduced to Katherine 
Rogers by Shakespeare, 60-78; 
his children by second wife, 
81 ; his home life, 119-121 ; his 
death, 126; his will, 126-127; 
mentioned, 32, 33, 45, 88, 101, 
102, 103, 132, 296, 319. 

Harvard, Robert, Jr., 58. 

Harvard, Robert (3d), 81, 87, 
88, 120, 125, 127. 

Harvard, Mrs. Robert (first wife). 

See Destyn, Barbara. 
Harvard, Mrs. Robert, her prob- 
able similarity to description of 
Mrs. Walhngton, 33-35; her 
marriage to Robert Harvard, 
59-60, 66, 79-80; possibly in- 



326 



INDEX 



troduced to Robert Harvard 
by Shakespeare, 60-78; birth 
of her children, 81, 87; her 
will, 85-87, 201-205 ; her home 
life, 119-121; death of hus- 
band, 126; bequest from hus- 
band, 127; her marriage to 
John EUetson, 128; death of 
Mr. Elletson, 128; bequest 
from Mr. Elletson, 128-129; 
her marriage to Richard Year- 
wood, 131 ; death of Mr. Year- 
wood, 133 ; her means, 133 ; her 
death, 200-201 ; mentioned, 
132, 319. 

Harvard, Thomas (cousin of 
Robert), 132. 

Harvard, Thomas (son of Rob- 
ert), 87, 120, 126, 127, 128, 129, 
130, 131, 201, 202, 205, 206, 
213, 214, 249, 257, 286, 319. 

Harvard College, name given to, 
276, 288, 291, 295; 290, 298. 

Harvard Hall, the burning of, 
299. 

" Harvard House," the, 80. 

Harvard University, 268, 309, 
310, 311, 312, 314, 315, 317. 

Harvard window in Emmanuel 
College, the, 310. 

" Harvey," Robert, 50, 51. 

Harvye, John. See Harvard, 
John. 

" Hector," the, 251. 

Henley Street, Stratford, 62. 

Henry IV. of France, 228. 

" Henry VI.," 67. 

Henry VIII., 112. 

Henslowe, Philip, 67, 73. 

Higginson, Francis, 243, 244, 345, 
256, 286. 



High Churchism, at Oxford, 137 ; 

at Cambridge, 144. 
High Commission, the court of, 

219, 220, 221, 224, 225. 
High Street, Southwark, 49, 50, 

51, 53, 95. 
High Street, Stratford, 62, 77, 79. 
Hill, Thomas, 180. 
Hobson, Thomas, 158, 159. 
" Hobson's choice," origin of, 158. 
Holland, 9, 222, 225. 
Holland, Lord, 173. 
Hohnes, Oliver Wendell, 303. 
Holy Trinity Church, Stratford, 

79. 
Homer, 4, 232. 

Hooker, Thomas, 27, 196, 238. 
Horace, 232. 
Horrox, Jeremiah, 188. 
Hull, Mass., 258. 
Humble family, the, 108. 
Hutchinson, Anne, 261, 264, 265, 

268, 270, 271. 
Hutchinson, Colonel, 70. 
Hutchinsonian controversy, the, 

261-269, 271, 288. 
Hyde, the Abbot of, 56. 

Inquisition, the, 219. 
" Intellectual System," Cud- 
worth's, 190. 

James I., 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 
18, 27, 96, 105, 139, 142, 152, 
153, 154, 165. 

James, Rev. Thomas, 270. 

" Jane of Gosport," the, 128. 

Johnson, Capt. Edward, 256, 
290. 

Josselyn, John, 252, 255, 273. 

Juvenal, 232. 



327 



INDEX 



King's College, Cambridge, 166. 
Knox, John, 10, 248. 

Lady Fair of Southwark, the, 94. 

Lambeth, 26. 

Laud, Archbishop, 10, 19-27, 31, 
45, 56, 105, 137, 138, 144, 155, 
166, 167, 176, 185, 196, 218, 
219, 220, 221, 222, 241, 246, 
247, 261. 

Lee, Sidney, 64, 67. 

Lewes, Sussex, 194. 

Lewes, the Abbot of, 56. 

Lightfoot, John, 229. 

Lincoln, the Countess of, 239. 

Lincoln, the Earl of. See Clin- 
ton, Theophilus. 

London, 32, 41, 49, 53, 54, 56, 58, 
66, 68, 70, 96, 97, 99, 100, 112, 
121, 128, 132, 140, 142, 157, 
158, 185, 193, 203, 206, 219, 
221, 223. 

London, the Bishop of, 218, 219. 

London, the see of, 22, 24. 

London Bridge, 42, 54, 95. 

Long Island (Boston harbor), 259. 

" Lord Strange's men," 67. 

Lowell, James Russell, 108, 311, 
315. 

Luther, 99, 110, 196. 

Macaulet, 20. 

" Mad Puritan," the, 155. 

Magna Charta. See Great Char- 
ter. 

" Magnalia," Mather's, 193, 294. 

Mary I., Queen of England, 3, 
100, 112. 

Mary, Queen of Scots, 6, 10, 20. 

Massachusetts Bay colony, the, 
243. 



Mather, Cotton, 187, 193, 294, 

297. 
Medcalfe, Peter, leaves a bequest 

to Robert Harvard, 50, 51. 
Mede, 162. 
Merchant Taylors' school, the, 

93. 
Middlesex, 129. 
Mildmay, Sir Walter, 149, 150, 

151. 
Millenary Petition, the, 11, 14. 
Milton, John, 69, 70, 158, 161, 

162, 163. 
" Mirror for Magistrates," the, 

232, 233. 
Montague, court chaplain, 17. 
Monument of London, the, 37. 
More, Henry, 161. 
Mornay, Du Plessis, 227, 228. 
Morton, Rev. Nicholas, 130, 215, 

248. 
Morton, Mrs. Nicholas, 132. 
MuUinger, J. B., 161, 172. 
Munster, 192. 

Neile, Bishop, 105, 106. 

Nevel, 195, 196. 

New England, 9, 10, 19, 27, 180, 
185, 187, 213, 215, 216, 217, 
226, 228, 237, 240, 241, 242, 
243, 244, 248, 249, 251, 258, 
262, 275, 283, 285, 287, 291, 
298, 300, 306, 307, 310, 311, 
312, 319, 320. 

" New England's First Fruits," 
285, 286, 288. 

" New England's Plantation," 
243. 

" New England's Prospect," 245. 

Newmarket, 139. 

New Place, Stratford, 77. 



INDEX 



Newton, Sir Isaac, 188. 
Newtown. See Cambridge, Mass. 
Norton, Charles Eliot, 311. 

" Olbia,". Sadler's, 192. 

Old Boston. See Boston, Old. 

Oxford, 21, 137, 152, 221, 222. 

Paekman, Dr. George, 301. 
Parliament, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 

19, 20, 246. 
Parliament, the, "Addled," 13, 

15, 16. 
Parliament, the Long, 19. 
Parliament of 1629, the, 18. 
Pearson, 162. 

Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, 195. 
Penn, William, 208. 
Peterhouse chapel, 177. 
Pierrepont, Henry, 182, 183, 184. 
Pierrepont, William, 182, 184. 
Pilgrim Fathers, the, 9. 
Plague, the, 58, 121, 122-126. 
Pliny, 232. 
Plutarch, 232. 
Plymouth, 9, 10. 
Portsmouth, 203. 
Presbyterianism, 15. 
Preston, Dr., 222. 
Preston, John, 178-180. 
Protestantism, 6, 8. 
Prynne's " Divine Tragedy," 44. 
Puckle, 223. 

Puritan emigration, the, 19. 
Puritanism, 4, 7, 8, 13, 15, 17, 21, 

23, 38, 138, 143, 162, 163, 179, 

181, 187, 191, 199, 208. 
Puritans, the, 8, 9, 10, 19, 24, 27, 

31, 68, 69, 70, 71, 100, 106, 137, 

142, 144, 178, 184, 190, 232, 

256, 262. 



QUARLES, 232. 

Queen's Head Inn, Southwark, 
202, 203-205, 215. 

Reason, Ralph, 132. 

Reformation, the, 3, 6, 70, 226. 

Renascence, the, 3, 6, 70, 111. 

Restoration, the, 138, 155, 191. 

Ringmer, 194, 207, 208, 212, 213. 

Rochester, the Bishop of, 56. 

Rogers, Charles, 64. 

Rogers, Edward, 65. 

Rogers, Henry, 63. 

Rogers, Joan, 65. 

Rogers, Katherine. See Harvard, 

Mrs. Robert. 
Rogers, Richard, 65. 
Rogers, Rose, 132. 
Rogers, Thomas, 61, 62, 63, 64, 

77, 79. 
Roos, Lord, 183. 
Rose Theatre, the, 67, 73. 
Rotterdam, 223. 
Rubens, 174. 
Ruth (servant of the Walling- 

tons), 123, 124. 
Rye, 203. 

Sackville, 233. 

Sadler, Ann, meets John Har- 
vard, 194 ; courted by Harvard, 
207-212 ; her marriage to Har- 
vard, 213. See also Harvard, 
Mrs. John. 

Sadler, John, 191-194, 208. 

Sadler, Rev. John, 194. 

Sadler, Mary, 296. 

St. Augustine of Canterbury, the 
Abbot of, 56. 

St. Clement's Church, Cam- 
bridge, 152. 



INDEX 



St. David's, the see of, 22, 27, 
56. 

St. John's College, Oxford, 21. 

St. Katherine's hospital, 129, 205, 
206. 

St. Mary Overy's, London, 99. 
See also St. Saviour's Church, 
Southwark. 

St. Mary's Church, Cambridge, 
138, 139, 143, 176, 272. 

St. Olive's, the parish of, 50, 206, 
213, 215. 

St. Paul's Cathedral, 112. 

St. Saviour's Church, Southwark, 
known as St. Mary Overy's, 99 ; 
mentioned, 45, 56, 58, 66, 72, 
73, 74, 80, 81, 86, 101, 102, 
105, 107, 108, 109, 119, 121, 126, 
128, 130, 203, 204, 215, 272, 
318. 

St. Saviour's grammar school, the, 
88, 89-90, 91, 115, 121, 169. 

St. Saviour's parish, 131, 133. 

" Saints' Legacies," the, 222. 

" Samson Agonistes," 69. 

Sancroft, William, 171, 190, 191. 

Sandcroft, William, 187. 

Savile, 233. 

Scotland, 14, 15, 45, 97, 247. 

Seaman, Lazarus, 184, 185. 

Selborne, 208. 

Separatists, the, 9. 

Sewall, Judge, 271, 298, 299. 

Shakespeare, Edmund, 65, 66, 76, 
80, 81. 

Shakespeare, Gilbert, 64. 

Shakespeare, Joan, 65. 

Shakespeare, John, 61, 62, 63. 

Shakespeare, Richard, 65. 

Shakespeare, William, his possi- 
ble connection with Robert 



Harvard's marriage, 60-78 ; 79, 

80, 81. 
Shepard, Thomas, 196, 237, 238, 

245, 288 ; his "Autobiography," 

285. 
Shepherd, Mrs., 298. 
" Shepherd's Calender," the, 4, 8. 
Ship Money, 246, 247. 
Sidney, Sir PhiUp, 4. 
Sidney CoUege, Cambridge, 162, 

195, 196. 
Smith, John, 242, 243. 
Southampton, the county of, 129. 
South Mailing, 213. 
Southwark, London, described in 

1616, 94-96; 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 

56, 57, 58, 66, 67, 68, 74, 80, 

105, 119, 131, 196, 199, 202, 

203, 206, 248, 272. 
Spain, 100, 219. 
Sparke, Michael, 220, 221, 222, 

225, 243. 
Spenser, 4, 5, 7, 8. 
Springetts, the, 208. 
Spurstowe, William, 184. 
Star Chamber, the, 44, 218. 
Stationers' Company, the, 218. 
Sterry, Peter, 187. 
Stone, Samuel, 196. 
Story, Judge, 310. 
Stratford-on-Avon, 60, 61, 63, 64, 

65, 68, 69, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80. 
Stuart race, the, 12, 17. 
Sunday obsers'ance, 96-97. 
Surrey, 129, 206. 
Sutton, Dr. Thomas, 99, 101, 102, 

103, 104. 
Symmes, Rev. Zachariah, 270, 

272, 284. 
Synagogue in London, the first, 

193. 



330 



INDEX 



Tabard Inn, the, 54, 55, 203. 

Taylor, Jeremy, 162. 

Thames, the, 33, 41, 42, 54, 56, 

121, 122. 
Thoreau, 263. 

" Tom Tidler's Ground," the 

game of, 36. 
Tower Hill, 26. 
Trehearne, John, 73. 
Trinity College, Cambridge, 166, 

175. 
Tuckney, Anthony, 180, 239, 240, 

260, 283. 
Tm-ner, William, 222. 
Tyndale, John, 112. 

Una, 6. 

"Vacation Exercise," IVIilton's, 

163. 
Vane, Sir Henry, 259, 260, 266. 
Virgil, 4. 

Wallington, Elizabeth, 124, 125. 
Wallington, John (brother of Ne- 

hemiah), 124. 
WaUington, John (son of Nehe- 

miah), 124. 
WaUington, Mrs., 33. 
Wallington, Nehemiah, 51, 71, 

122, 123, 124; his diary and 
note-books, 32-46. 

Wallington, Mrs. Nehemiah, 123, 

124. 
WaUington, Sr., Mr., 33, 124. 
WaUis, John, 188. 
Ward, Dr., 195, 196. 
Ward, Seth, 161. 
Ward, WiUiam, 132. 



Warmstry, Rev. Thomas, 27. 
Waverley, the Abbot of, 56. 
Wentworth, 246, 247. 
Westminster Abbey, 42, 183. 
Westminster Assembly, the, 184. 
Westminster school, the, 93. 
Wheelwright, Rev. John, 265, 

269, 270, 271. 
Wliichcot, Benjamin, 185-187. 
Whichcote, ISIary, 209-212. 
White, Gilbert, 208. 
WhitehaU, 185. 
Wight, the Isle of, 184. 
Williams, Roger, 187. 
Wilson, Rev. John, 261, 264, 265, 

266, 270, 292, 294, 295, 296. 
Winchester, the Bishop of, 105, 

140. 
Winchester Palace, 56, 105. 
Winthrop, Mass., 258. 
Winthrop, John, 20, 208, 239, 

253, 256, 261, 266, 267, 278, 

284, 285, 315. 
Winthrop, Robert C, 315. 
Wither, 232, 233. 
" Wonder Working Providence," 

the, 290. 
Wood, WiUiam, 245. 
Wordsworth, 20. 
Worthington, John, 171, 209-212. 

Yearwood, Richard, his mar- 
riage to Mrs. EUetson, 131 ; his 
death, 133; his will, 133; 127, 
132. 

Yearwood, Mrs. Richard. See 
Harvard, Mrs. Robert, 

Zanchius, 228. 



331 



I 



LITERARY BY-PATHS 
IN OLD ENGLAND 

By henry C. SHELLEY 

Author of " John Harvard and His Times " 

With 24 full-page plates and 100 
smaller Illustrations from photographs 

8vo, Decorated Cloth, in Box. $3.00 net 

CONTENTS : I. In Spenser's Footsteps ; H. The Home or Sir 
Philip Sidney; HI. Memorials of William Penn ; IV. The 
Birthplace of Gray's Elegy ; V. Gilbert White's Selborne ; 
VI. Goldsmith's " Deserted Village " ; VII. Burns in Ayr- 
shire; VIII. Keats AND His Circle ; IX. In Carlyle's Country; 
X. Thojias Hood and His Friends ; XI. Royal Winchester. 

A thoroughly readable book. His style is pleasing and im- 
personal. — The Nation, New York. 

One of the best books of its class seen in recent years. Written 
with sympathy and understanding. — lAterary Digest, New York. 

He takes us away from the beaten roads of biography and criti- 
cism and leads us through the devious and charming lanes strewn 
with reminiscences of the life and labors of the masters in hterature 
of England. — Philadelphia Record. 

Among these by-paths one leads, in the Keats country, to the 
John Hamilton Reynolds family, and develops new and valuable 
material as to the concomitants of Wordsworth's "Peter Bell." 
Two or three letters there would alone justify the volume. — 

The Independent, New York. 

Mr. Shelley's book is really charming. . . . Mr. Shelley is in 
many respects quite the ideal guide, unassuming, sympathetic, and 
exceedingly well informed. He refreshes vague memories and 
suppUes fresh clues at almost every turn, and his is exactly the 
book one would like to take along on a pilgrimage to poetic 
shrines. — Atlantic Monthly. 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, Publishers 
254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 



^^^ S 1907 



OCT i 



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LIERAF, DF CONGRESS 




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